


The Reveal

by Climbergirlio



Series: Peter Parker's Twitter Adventures [3]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: "We're not dating", Identity Reveal, Irondad, More Shuri and Peter antics, Spider-mom, The Avengers all love Peter, Twitter, YouTube, baby spider, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2019-10-26 00:30:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17735579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Climbergirlio/pseuds/Climbergirlio
Summary: Now that all Peter's classmates know he's the Stark Intern, and Shuri and Spider-Man have become the internet's favorite rumored couple, it's time for Peter Parker to come out to the world as both Spider-Man and the heir to Stark Industries. Good thing he has his dysfunctional family of superheroes to help him.*story was started before Endgame came out*





	1. Coming Home

“Hey Mom, Dad,” Peter called cheerily as he entered the penthouse. He was a little late, so he expected them to already be back. 

 

He heard no response. He glanced around the room and found what he was looking for. A small handwritten note from Pepper, saying they had gotten a last minute meeting scheduled and would be back later than they anticipated. Peter briefly toyed with the idea of going back out, but he was kind of tired. He’d been patrolling all day. Pepper and Tony had been visiting SI buildings across the world this summer and Peter had gone with them, going out as Spider-Man in all of the cities. Los Angeles was their last stop, and they’d be flying back to New York tomorrow. 

 

Peter made his way to his room and pulled up a holoscreen. He logged into Skype and called up Ned. He hadn’t talked to his best friend in a few days and since he had the time now, they needed to catch up. Ned didn’t connect immediately, but the moment he did Peter knew why. Betty and MJ were at his house because he was leaving for a family trip tomorrow.

 

“Peter!” Ned greeted cheerfully, “how’s wherever you are?”

“Los Angeles is great. Sunny and plenty of beaches,” Peter responds.

“You coming home anytime, loser?” MJ asks.

Peter smiled, “tomorrow, actually. And I’m sorry Ned, I remember you texted me this morning and told me you and Betty and MJ were going to hang out before you left, but I didn’t think about the time difference because Mom said not to think of time at home so I didn’t really register you were all going to be hanging out before-”

“It’s fine, Peter,” Ned assures him.

“Yeah, I was sick of third wheeling anyways,” MJ tells him, though it’s clearly directed towards Ned and Betty.

“Well you can hang out with me when I get back. And Shuri because I think she’s coming for like three days when I make the big reveal.”

“Oh great, more third wheeling,” MJ mutters sarcastically.

“For the last time. We’re not a couple.”

“Right,” Betty deadpans, “you’re just “pretending” to be for fun.”

Betty and MJ had found out about him being Spider-Man a while back, not too long after Ned and Betty had started dating. At first he’d been super stressed about it, but it was nice to have all his friends in the loop, even if he was going to go public next week. 

“The twitter thing is completely fake. We just find it hilarious to watch the whole world fall for our deception,” Peter protests.

MJ rolls her eyes and changes the subject, “let’s go back to the calling Pepper Potts Mom thing. How long has that been happening?”

“Oh! It happened for the first time about a month or so ago. Tony and Pepper were totally cool, said I could call them mom and dad or Tony and Pepper or some combination. Mostly it’s been a combination,” Peter explains.

Betty shakes her head, “I can’t imagine just casually calling Pepper and Tony Stark mom and dad.”

Peter blushes.

“Do they call you son?” Ned asks.

“No…?” 

“Why not?” Ned asks, eager.

“Um. Do your parents call you son?” 

Ned deflates, “I guess not.” 

MJ smacks Ned lightly, and then turns back to Peter, “how was the world traveling?”

“Great! It got a little lonely on the days I didn’t patrol though. How was New York?”

“Hasn’t changed in the month you were gone, really. We went college supply shopping,” Ned tells him.

 

Peter tries not to get jealous at that. He’s going to effectively skip freshman year of college and start as a sophomore next year. They had all agreed it was probably better for Peter in the long run as it would give people time to get used to the fact that he was Spider-Man and he’d be more equipped to dealing with people recognizing him and the ramifications of that. He’d be going to MIT, like Ned. Peter had gotten into both Harvard and MIT, but had picked MIT because he’d always wanted to go there and because that’s where Tony went. MJ was going to Harvard, and Betty was staying in New York and going to Columbia. Flash was going to Michigan State, as Peter had convinced Tony not to blacklist him from college, and not to get him expelled from Midtown. 

 

“I got this really awesome pink fuzzy chair,” Betty informed him.

“It’s disgusting,” MJ countered.

Ned was the only one who noticed Peter’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

Peter shook his head, “I’m just thinking about the fact that all of you are going off to college and I’ll just be like chilling at home.”

“First off, you’re going to be training to actually join the Avengers, not chilling. Second off, you’re going to be working at Stark Industries every other day. Third, you’re going to visit Shuri in Wakanda like all the time. Fourth, you can come visit us anytime, even if we aren’t as cool as your genius girlfriend,” MJ states.

“Oh my god. For the last time, Shuri and I aren’t dating,” Peter is exasperated. 

Betty nods thoughtfully, “that’s what Ned and I told everyone for a good month. And look at us now,” Betty entwines their hands, “a power couple.” They had started dating over winter break, and had been together for about 8 months.

“The most powerful power couple,” Ned agrees.

“And here I am,” MJ mutters.

Betty smiles wickedly, “the only people that out power couple Ned and I are Peter and Shuri.”

“I agree,” MJ seconds.

“Me too,” comes the traitorous voice of Ned, Peter’s former best friend.

“I’m going to hang up,” Peter threatens, even though he doesn’t really mean it. It’s nice to talk to all his friends again.

“I totally forgot to tell you,” Ned changes the subject, “when I get back from Chicago we have a Lego set to build.”

“Awesome! I brought a Wakandan puzzle back too. Nakia, she’s the Black Panther’s girlfriend, says that it should be difficult, so I think we can have some fun with it.”

“How was Wakanda, by the way,” Betty asks, “I don’t think we’ve talked since you went there.”

Peter breathed out in excitement, “it was great. Every time I go there it just is like twice as amazing.”

“You’d only been there twice before this time,” MJ comments drily.

“Yeah but like, they have super speed trains, and amazing ships you can fly and Shuri’s lab is basically heaven, and the guest rooms literally are fully customizable from a keypad. Not to mention, everyone there is so nice and all their science is like two hundred years in the future so it’s like you’re living in a sci-fi movie.”

“God you’re such a nerd,” MJ sighs.

“So are you,” he points out, “you were literally salutatorian.”

“And you were valedictorian, what’s your point?”

“Anyways, it was amazing, and nice to avoid the days that Pepper and Tony were going to be in China.”

“I still don’t understand what you have against China,” Ned tells him.

“I don’t dislike China. I dunno, I guess I’ve just spent my whole life reading made in China on plastic and I’m kind of frightened to like see where it’s all actually made?” 

MJ bursts out laughing, “literally what.”

“Like I love Chinese culture and stuff and I think it’s so cool that their culture remained so uniform for like thousands of years through history when Europe changed like every hundred years, but I also can’t think China without thinking plastic.”

“Why is this even something you think about?” Ned asks.

“I don’t know!” Peter exclaims, “but if the choice is China or Wakanda, Wakanda wins every single time.”

“Cuz he wants to see Shuri,” Betty whispers in MJ’s ear, quietly enough that without his super hearing he wouldn’t have heard her. He pretends not to anyway.

“Yeah man, I’d kill to go to Wakanda,” Ned says, envious.

“I bet you could go with me sometime,” Peter offers, “so long as it’s okay with T’Challa and Shuri, and I can’t imagine it won’t be.”

Ned grins, “awesome!”

“Actually we can ask her right now. Karen, add Princess Fry Lady to this Skype call.”

“Adding,” Karen confirms.

“Fiancé! I’m so glad you called!” Shuri says, immediately connecting.

“What’s up?”

“I can’t believe you are still calling him that,” MJ shakes her head.

“I haven’t found anything I like better,” Shuri explains, “so why am I crashing a Skype call with all of you?”

“Because we were talking about Wakanda and I can’t properly describe it,” Peter tells her.

“And now Ned wants to visit,” Betty adds.

“So we thought we’d call you up,” Peter finishes.  

“I see. Well Wakanda would be more than happy to have some visitors,” Shuri says graciously.

“And your brother wouldn’t mind?” Peter double-checks.

“No. He is always saying I need more friends my own age. Why do you think I’m in the US so much?”

“For the fries?” Peter suggests. Shuri has a weird obsession with fries since the first time she had had them.

 

Her first time eating the American Classic fry had been during one of their Spider-Man and Shuri YouTube videos. In the video, they had gone through a McDonalds drive through, using Peter’s car so it looked like they were driving but neither of them truly had to. Shuri had instantly loved the classic fried potato strips, and now it was a running joke.

 

They had also filmed a video where Shuri had sprayed his hands with non-stick cooking spray, and they tested if he still stuck to things. (He did.) Other notable videos included Spider-Man Does Shuri’s Hair, Spider-Man in Wakanda (The Series), Shuri Tries Out Webshooters, Spider-Man Scales a Skyscraper with Shuri on His Back, and Shuri is Flabbergasted by Spider-Man’s Room.

 

Yeah, they’d had some fun. “Do you guys think it’ll change?” Peter asks, interrupting whatever his friends were talking about, “when the world knows I’m Spider-Man?”

They all stop talking abruptly, “yes,” Shuri says honestly.

“I think it will be like when Wakanda showed it’s true self to the world. At first, everyone was shocked and wanted to know more, and then it sort of went back to the way it was, we are mostly ignored again. It’s not the same as it was, but it’s also not as bad as we feared.”

Peter nods thoughtfully, “I guess that makes sense. I guess I’m also just afraid that I’ll reveal myself as Peter Parker...and the world won’t like Peter Parker.”

“Peter. You literally started fighting crime when you were a sophomore in high school. People have done a lot less good and been loved worldwide,” MJ assures him.

“It’s going to be so weird to not have to hide my identity anymore. I can like do Spider-Man stuff as Peter Parker.”

“You’re going to get to stop separating yourself into two different people, too,” Shuri adds, “it’ll no longer be Peter Parker or Spider-Man, it can just be you.”

Peter hums, “I don’t even know if I can  _ do _ that. Like it’s really weird but sometimes I kind of feel like two different people, the kind of nerdy kid and the superhero.”

Shuri shakes her head, “I know that. I don't think that's especially healthy, though.”

“Yeah, Peter, I think it’s probably a good thing you’re going to reveal yourself,” Betty says, concern laced into her words.

“I’m also worried it’s going to put you guys at risk. Now that I’ll officially be announced and stuff, bad guys are going to target my friends and family.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about me,” Shuri smiles, “I’m already probably a target because of my brother. And Pepper and Tony are already targets because Tony is Iron Man.”

“And we will stay out of the public’s eye,” MJ assures him.

“Awww we can’t even ride Peter’s fame a little?” Ned asks.

“No,” Betty reprimands, “it’s safer for us and Peter this way.”

Ned sighs, “I know. You’re life is so cool Peter.”

Peter gives his friend a genuine smile, “until you wake up at 1 a.m. and have to remind yourself that you aren’t dead anymore.”

Shuri gives him a sharp look, “you told Stark that you were done having those nights and would absolutely be fine in Wakanda without him there.”

Peter scratches the back of his neck, “ummmm, I just wanted him to not worry so much, you know? Like it’s gotten so much better and there’s no reason for him to have to trudge into my room when he should be sleeping because of some silly nightmare. Plus I thought you knew I was lying about that. I’m a terrible liar.”

MJ pinches the bridge of her nose, “PTSD, Parker. It’s called PTSD.”

“Mr. Stark doesn’t mind Peter. You’re like one of his top five favorite people,” Ned reminds him.

“Wow, only top five?” Peter asks.

“Stop trying to deflect Peter! I will call him up myself if you don’t talk to him about this,” Shuri threatens.

“You don’t have his number,” Peter counters.

“I’m literally a genius. I can get it,” Shuri reminds him. 

“Listen, guys, it’s really not that big of a deal. If I mention it then he’ll start getting worried again, and I don’t want to do that to him.” 

“God you’re impossible,” Shuri breathes, exasperated.

“In my defense, I thought you already knew about this!”

Shuri shrugs, “you seemed so genuine.”

“I really only get them once a week now, so they practically are gone,” Peter tries to assure her.

“God, you’re a mess,” MJ chastises.

Peter is about to respond when he hears the door to the penthouse open. Tony and Pepper are home. “Guys, Tony and Pepper just got back, so I’ve got to go. I’ll see you two, Betty and MJ tomorrow or the next day?” MJ nods in affirmation, “ok, great! Have fun on your trip Ned! Bye!”

With that he signs off.

 

He closes the holoscreen, and then rushes to the kitchen. Both Tony and Pepper are just setting down grocery bags when he gets there. How they can ever go grocery shopping and not get noticed is beyond Peter. Maybe people don’t think that THE Tony Stark would ever dare step foot in such an establishment. It’s a logical conclusion for those who don’t know Pepper Potts. 

 

“Hey guys,” Peter greets cheerfully.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Pepper responds, sounding tired.

“How was work?”

“Awful,” is the predictable response from Tony.

Pepper sighs, “long. I’m excited to finally be back home tomorrow. How was your day?”

“Pretty good. No major crimes. It’s hard to give people directions when you don’t know the city, but I decided to just carry around tourist maps to give out instead.”

Tony eyes him critically, “no injuries you’re ‘forgetting’?”

Peter shook his head. 

“Did you like Los Angeles?” Pepper asks.

Peter ponders this, “yeah. It’s really different from New York, though.”

“How’s it rank out of all the places we visited?” Tony asks. 

“Top in North America, but behind all the European cities.” 

He accepts this response, “fair enough.”

“What was your favorite city?” Pepper asks.

Peter has to think about this, “Moscow because I could use my Russian.” 

Pepper laughs. 

“And because Nat came there and kept you company.”

“That too. It gets lonely exploring by yourself,” then he rushes to add, “Not that I don’t appreciate you guys bringing me with you because I’ve never been so many places in my life and they were all incredible and unique and amazing.”

 

They had started out by flying into London, staying two days there, then they went to France for two days, Italy for five as SI had headquarters in both Rome and Milan, Germany for two, Russia for two, then he had missed the week Tony and Pepper has spent in China and Japan, but joined them again in Cairo for two days. They finished their trip with Brazil for two days, Mexico for two days, and then Los Angeles. Everywhere they went, they had of course stayed in the nicest hotels, and Tony had brought portable versions of FRIDAY and Karen. He said it was important for Peter to have Karen for comfort reasons. Peter was inclined to agree. He had felt more at home with Karen in his various rooms. 

 

Sometimes, Peter still couldn’t imagine that this was his life. He had just spent a month touring the world. Before becoming Spider-Man, he’d barely left New York. Now he was basically an Avenger and went wherever they had missions, typically in the US, but once or twice they had been overseas. And now he’d gone across the globe with Pepper and Tony. 

 

“Well, I’m glad you had fun. I’m sorry we couldn’t go sightseeing with you,” Pepper laments. 

Peter shrugs, “It was still fun to swing around all the new cities. How’d you explain the fact that Spider-Man was going across the world with you?”

“I did a press conference on it when we were in Paris,” that’d been their second stop, “I said it was part of your training to be in the Avengers, and it was simply more convenient for you to go with us than by yourself.” Tony explained.  

“Huh. Well they’ll know the truth in a week anyways.”

“Yes, they will. Now, who wants to help me make some dinner? We can go to a beach to see the sunset when we’re done. I’ve missed LA sunsets and we we didn’t have time to see one last night with that stupid dinner.”

“Pep,  _ you _ scheduled that dinner,” Tony reminds her.

“I know I did Tony,” she snaps, “sometimes the rest of us do things we don’t want to do.”

He holds his hands up in surrender, “alright, alright. I think it’s a great idea to see the sunset.” 

“Me too,” Peter agrees.

“Then let’s get this dinner started,” Pepper announces.

 

~*~

 

They miraculously don’t get noticed at all on the beach, not that there are many people to notice them. Pepper picked a pretty secluded beach, likely for that reason. As the sun began to set, the water took on a golden hue, and as the waves crashed ashore in harmony it seemed almost like paradise. Pepper had her head resting on Tony’s shoulder, their hands clasped together. When they’re not looking, Peter snaps a photo, intending to gift it to them later. 

 

Peter walks up and down the beach for a while, reveling in the feeling of the wet sand under his bare feet. It’s nice when they have moments like this… moments where time slows and they get to just live for an hour without saving the world. Not that being a superhero is something Peter wants to give up, because he could never live with himself if he did. 

 

Eventually, they all pack up and head back to the penthouse. They don’t have to be up at any certain time tomorrow morning as they’re going to take the private jet as they’ve been doing on the rest of the trip, but Pepper has put both Tony and Peter on a regular sleep plan. They must be in bed by midnight at the absolute latest and up at six at the earliest. FRIDAY is the enforcer of this, and shuts off all power to everything in their rooms or any room they’re in. Including the lights, not that that’s an issue for Peter with his heightened eyesight. 

 

They make it back just in time for Pepper’s curfew, and Pepper makes sure to tuck Peter in to bed. It’s a little juvenile to be tucked into bed by your mom, but Peter doesn’t care because he loves Pepper, and Pepper doesn’t care because it’s how she makes sure he actually goes to sleep. Also, it helps Peter’s nightmares for him to feel completely safe before going to bed, and Pepper’s presence oozes safety. 

 

~*~

It doesn’t take too long to get to New York the next day, one of the benefits of having a fancy private jet. The second they land at the compound, he is practically tackled by Nat.

 

“ребенок паук!” ((Baby Spider!))

“Nat!”

After Nat relinquishes her hold on him, Peter goes around and hugs all the Avengers, seeing as he hasn’t seen them in a month. All of them ruffle his hair affectionately, but he’s so used to this now that he’s not even embarrassed. Honestly, it’s really nice to know that he has a family who loves him and misses him when he’s gone.

 

After making it through all the Avengers, Peter is more than ready to just lie in his own bed again. Traveling is awesome, but man does he miss the comfort of his own room. Before he can even get in the door to the compound, though, a sleek black car pulls up to the curb. The door to the passenger seat opens, and out tumbles Aunt May. 

 

“Aunt May!” Peter exclaims, weariness forgotten.

He has to remember to check his super strength so he doesn’t crush her in his enthusiastic hug. 

“Hey, honey,” she greets, “how was seeing the world?”

“So amazing,” he assures her, “how was New York? How have you been doing?” 

 

He asks the last question with a little hesitance, as her boyfriend had broken up with her only two weeks before Peter had left. Peter had offered to stay with her, but she had been adamant that he go with Pepper and Tony, saying she had been about to break up with him anyways. She had seemed fine every time that Peter had facetimed her, but he wanted to make sure. After all, she had ended up having to miss visiting them while they were in Italy. 

 

“New York has been great, don’t you worry about me,” she smiled, “besides, Happy’s been keeping me company,” she gestured to the man that had just just come around the back of the car. 

Tony raised his eyebrows at that, turning to Happy with question marks in his eyes, “is that so?”

Happy pretended to not hear him. Peter and Tony shared a look. 

“Well, how about all of us,” Pepper indicated everyone who had come to be their welcoming committee, “go up to the common room and order some take-out and catch up.”

May smiled over at Pepper, “that sounds amazing.” 

 


	2. Last Days of Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter's last days before he tells the world he's Spider-Man aren't wasted.

After spending all of yesterday catching up with his family, Peter had woken up late. He had grabbed a quick breakfast and then rode into Queens, where he had patrolled for a good couple of hours. Once he had thoroughly tired himself out, he swung to MJ’s house. Since he had come out as Spider-Man to MJ, he had become familiar with the Jones household. Her mom liked Peter well enough, so long as “he never ever tied down her independent daughter”. MJ had laughed at that, saying Peter already had a girlfriend. Peter had been decidedly unamused. 

 

Regardless, Peter was a regular guest at the Jones’ and so when MJ’s mom opened the door, she greeted him with a hug, saying she was so glad he was back from his camp and that it had felt weird with only three mouths to feed. Peter laughed and thanked her graciously, and then spit out some crap about his summer camp. That had been the official excuse as to Peter Parker’s absence for anyone who wasn’t aware of his alter ego which, granted, was not very many people who would actually notice he was gone. 

 

After making polite chit chat with MJ’s mother, Peter made his way to the living room. As soon as he steps into the room, Betty jumps up off the couch and envelops him into a hug. MJ simply nods at him from her place on the couch. He drops down on the side of the couch that Betty hadn’t been occupying, next to MJ. Collectively, they decide to play scrabble. MJ almost always wins this game, but Ned despises it, and Peter and Betty don’t mind it. They mostly play it because it’s always a good idea to have MJ win something  _ before _ playing a game like monopoly. The results can get nasty otherwise. 

 

Peter spends his afternoon playing games with MJ and Betty, two rounds of Scrabble and then one brutal game of Avengers Monopoly. Peter plays as his custom 3D printed Spider-Man token. MJ is always Black Widow, Betty Thor, and Ned Captain America. None of them play as Iron Man as it used to be Peter’s piece of choice before Tony has helped him make the Spider-Man one. 

 

Once Peter wins handily at Monopoly, it’s high time to go both because MJ is angry at losing again and he should be getting home anyways. He bids the girls goodbye, and sees himself out with a smile. He’d missed his friends.  

 

~*~

 

Later that night, as he’s about to go to bed, Karen tells him that he’s been tagged in a Tweet by Shuri. This isn’t that unusual as they interact with some frequency on Twitter, but he decides to check it before he goes to bed anyways. 

 

**Princess Shuri** @memeshuri

I broke into Spider-Man’s room while he was gone! @starkintern makes sure he sees my video. ;)

(Link)

  
  


Peter taps on the link, then projects the video to a screen across from his bed. The video opens to Shuri, sitting in the same room Peter is currently in. 

“Hello, internet,” she greets, “I have a special treat for all of you today. As you know, Spider-Man is going across the world with the Starks, so I decided to pay a visit to his unguarded room to update his closet.” Shuri holds up a handful of his most generic shirts. “I’m replacing the shirts he doesn’t care about as much with my special Vibranium clothes. Soft as your typical cotton, strong as vibranium. He tends to like get shot a lot and stuff, so I think we might have to make it a new rule that whenever he goes out he needs to wear one of my shirts. He’s very self sacrificial that way.” Shuri sighs, “superheroes.”

“Anyway, while I’m here anyway, I figured I would show you guys around Spider-Man’s room. I know we already did a video on him like showing off the furniture on his ceiling,” Shuri gestures to the couch, which is across from a high-tech TV, and then points out his bookcase, beanbag chair, and speaker. “What we didn’t tell you is that Stark literally spent like two days figuring out how to mount all this stuff so that it would function just as well as it would if it was set on the ground. While I’m talking about his absurd furniture, I’ll answer a few of the questions I notice most often in my Twitter feed about Spider-Man’s crazy room. So I think one thing a lot of you wanted to know was how does he stick to the beanbag chair and couch. Honestly? I have no idea. The rules of physics don’t really seem to apply to him. I can say though, that if you startled him while he’s watching TV on his ceiling, then sometimes he’ll just crash to the floor. It really worries the rest of the Avengers because they’re afraid he’s gonna snap his neck, but they also can’t refuse him anything and he literally just gave them puppy eyes and talked about how he got double the space without expanding the room. That’s Spider-Man’s real superpower. No one can ever refuse him anything.” 

 

Peter, watching the video averts his eyes from the screen quickly. He doesn’t need to see Shuri’s wicked grin to know the purpose of that comment. 

 

“Let’s see, what other questions do I remember? Oh! I think a lot of you guys asked if Spider-Man keeps any pictures of us together in his room. The answer is yes, but I don’t know if there are any where he’s in the suit. Let’s see.” Shuri picks up the camera and brings it around the room with her. They had decided their videos would be more authentic with an actual camera instead of FRIDAY, and the physical existence of it made it easier for them to know where to direct their eyes. “Um, I haven’t found any yet,” Shuri informed the viewers. She had censored out almost everything in Peter’s room that gave away anything about him personally, a couple things were simply completely edited out, and then a couple more had just plain censor boxes over them. “Ah ha! Here’s one!” Shuri holds up a single photo frame from a dresser top full. The rest of the photos are covered by sensor boxes, “so this is us like...3 months ago? He’d just come to the Compound after patrolling, and I thought it was a good opportunity for us to take a picture to use as our YouTube profile picture. This particular photo is one of the outtakes because I’m laughing and he’s not even facing the camera, but it’s actually a really good photo. Let’s see, who else makes the photo gallery. Oh! Here we have a picture of Iron Man and Spider-Man in an awesome action shot. I don’t know when or where this was taken, but it looks like they were maybe fighting some aliens? I’m assuming that it was on an Avengers mission because Nat is in the background there taking no prisoners. We all support A Queen.” Shuri pauses for a moment, “Natasha is honestly my favorite Avenger, hands down, by the way. Spider-Man also has some photos with her here, and the rest of the team, by not in his suit I don’t think. Yeah, I don’t see any more so let me think of one more FAQ before I leave you.” She smiles, “ah, yes I have one. Several people have asked me if I have, to phrase this nicely, ever been in Spider-Man’s bed.” Shuri raises an eyebrow at the camera, and then backflops onto the bed, “yes.”

 

With that, the video cuts and the scene changes to Wakanda and Shuri says her usual outro, as well as tells people to like and subscribe. 

 

Peter would typically text Shuri in response to something like this, but in this scenario the public should hear his response too. 

 

**Science Dude** @starkintern

Replying to @memeshuri

Breaking and Entering is illegal - Spider-Man 

 

**Princess Shuri** @memeshuri

Replying to @memeshuri @starkintern 

Ooooooh is he gonna call the cops on me? 

 

**Science Dude** @starkintern

Replying to @memeshuri @starkintern 

Nah. I fight criminals myself. Tell her to expect a visit from me - Spider-Man 

 

**Princess Shuri** @memeshuri 

Replying to @memeshuri @starkintern

I’m ready and waiting. 

 

Peter then scrolled absentmindedly through Twitter, reading people’s reactions to Shuri’s video. A lot of people had thought it was sweet of Shuri to bring him safer clothes, and then a couple people said that if he truly had no idea she was going to be there, it was an invasion of privacy. Peter did truly have no idea when she had went into his room, but if she ever did anything he wasn’t comfortable with, Karen would tell him. And Shuri wouldn’t do it in the first place. She would never intentionally do something that Peter was truly uncomfortable with her doing.  

 

Pretty much all the comments Peter was tagged in were dedicated shippers who analyzed everything Shuri had done in the video, citing minute marks as evidence for why they were definitely a couple, and then tagging Peter and asking him what he thought, or people asking questions about Spider-Man. He didn’t respond to any of them. 

 

Instead, he texted Shuri, and they got a quick banter going for a little bit about the video. They also discussed what their next video would be, and what they would do in it. They were planning on filming one more video before Peter came out as Spider-Man and it was going to be their greatest yet. Finally, when Peter was so tired he could barely see his phone anymore, he bid Shuri goodnight and turned off the phone. 

 

~*~

 

Peter spent the rest of his week before Shuri would arrive re-adjusting to his summer routine, which was pretty much patrol all the time that Tony had meetings. It was nice to be back in Queens, and he often dropped by the hospital where Aunt May worked during lulls in patrol to visit both May and the sick kids. It cheered up both the kids and Peter to have a superhero visit them in the hospital. He gave out autographs and chatted with the brave little kids. It was nice to meet some people who truly appreciated him and who were so excited to see him. It was also kind of depressing to see all the kids who were suffering, but he was happy he could at least temporarily ease their pain, if only a little. 

 

Peter also happy to get back to being able to grab sandwiches from Delmars, and talk with the people of Queens again. People had really taken a shining to him, and now almost every day someone would buy him some sort of treat. It was a good thing he had such a fast metabolism because otherwise Pepper would have never approved of all the junk food. She was a lot stricter about that kind of thing than Aunt May had been. Well, she was stricter with Tony anyway. Peter’s metabolism made her go easier on him. That, and the fact that he spent most of his day swinging around Queens, which was quite a workout. 

 

He also got some cool video from his point of view while he was swinging. They were going to use it to introduce him at the press conference. Well, they were calling it a press conference but it wasn’t really like a traditional press conference FRIDAY would be recording the whole thing, no other cameras would be allowed. They had done a dress rehearsal of sorts yesterday, with Pepper overseeing everything. They all had earpieces that fed them lines which had been written by Pepper and Peter, with assistance from Tony, Bucky, and Nat. It was very nearly almost like they were putting on a play and Peter was the main character. They had all had a lot of fun yesterday editing their lines and movements. Maybe for some good publicity some time the Avengers could put on a play for charity. 

 

The point was that the “press conference” was going to be anything but a conventional press conference. The goal in all of this was obviously to make sure that the public got only EXACTLY what Pepper and Tony wanted them to. They had pulled out all the stops for this, even sending a PR person to pose as a photographer/videographer at a news company and then chose that person to be the one person allowed to video the conference. Basically, they were going to pretend to be videoing the conference live, but in reality they would send in the video from FRIDAY that had been okayed by Pepper. The video would be additionally protected by software that would not allow anyone to copy any part of the video or take any screenshots. In this way, to see the video, people would have to go to the one source, and couldn’t watch any videos that had been spliced together to make Peter look bad. 

 

It took a lot of extra work up front, but Pepper had mentioned on many occasions how it would be well worth it to not have to put out as many fires later on. The news company who got the exclusive video was also happy with the plan, as they were willing to trade the video not being live for no one else being able to view it. Tony and Pepper had briefly toyed with the idea of having the only video come directly from the Avengers Media, but ultimately decided that the video would not have as much credibility as it would from an actual news station. The news company had agreed to show the press conference “live”, and then also post it on their website. All that was left now was to actually do the thing. And for Peter to get his video and edit the footage into a really cool montage of him swinging through Queens and battling aliens and the like. Easy-peasey. 

 

~*~

The day of Shuri’s arrival and the last day of Peter’s anonymity dawned bright and sunny. Peter woke up early and got his day started with a bowl of cereal. Before he had taken three bites, he was joined by Cap and Bucky. Steve greeted him enthusiastically, and asked about what his plans for the day were going to be. Bucky simply completely ignored his presence and inhaled some coffee from the coffee bot, Coff-E. Tony was very original with his names for robots. Coff-E always had a hot cup ready, and was fully customizable, with every addition you could ever dream of. Additionally, Coff-E could scan your face and remember your usual so that all you needed to do was hit the ‘make coffee’ button and it would be ready in seconds. 

 

Coff-E was most of the Avengers’ favorite bot. He was certainly Bucky’s. Bucky wasn’t one of those people who couldn’t live without coffee, but he preferred to start his mornings with a steaming cup. Generally, it makes him more pleasant throughout the day when he does eat his breakfast with coffee. Peter’s best guess as to why this was would be that it was a comfort to him, and part of a routine that he associated with peace and family. Also, Coff-E was pretty cute so that probably had some contribution to Bucky’s love for him. 

 

Peter was not as big of a fan of the little guy simply because he wasn’t allowed to drink coffee. He was, however, allowed steamed milk or hot chocolate courtesy of Coff-E, so whenever he was in the mood for either of those, he appreciated his presence. They also had other machines that made different kinds of sodas, teas, or lemonades, depending on the machine, but they were not as sentient as Coff-E. 

 

Either way, Bucky seemed to be enjoying his coffee, and after a few sips, joined Peter and Steve at the table. He had brought with him Steve’s usual coffee order, which Coff-E had of course saved on his screen for convenience in case anyone else wanted to bring another member of the team coffee, but didn’t want to have to remember their prefered combination. Well, everyone but Peter could access this function. Tony was kind of paranoid after the last (and only) time Peter had sampled the popular caffeinated beverage. To make a long story short, it entered his system  _ fast _ and left him literally bouncing off the walls for 10 minutes, and then he crashed  _ hard. _ Like, really, really hard. He had, quite literally, fallen from the ceiling and then slept for two hours straight. Peter hadn’t attempted to drink any more coffee since then, but the team was, as usual, very over-protective and went to great efforts to stop him from ever having any again. 

 

That was why he was stuck with cereal and no drink for breakfast while Steve and Bucky sipped happily away at their respective steaming cups and ate toast. The cereal was technically his own choice, but that was just because he hadn’t felt like using Toast-E today. (Tony was seriously not creative with his bot names) 

 

Peter talked to Bucky while they both finished up breakfast, Steve ignoring them in favor of a newspaper. An actual paper newspaper, which Peter didn’t even know still existed before living with Steve. Sometimes he really did earn the affectionate title of ‘grandpa’. 

 

Once Peter had finished breakfast, he went to the lab. Shuri was coming today, and they were filming their last video, so he had to get some things ready. They were going to film the video driving into New York on a motorcycle which Shuri would drive. They had decided to make one last video before Peter revealed himself, and motorcycle riding was random enough that it worked perfectly. Peter had stopped by the store earlier in the week to buy them some proper motorcycle helmets in an effort to promote safety. He had then decorated them with a small spider and a little person doing the Wakanda Forever motion. He had also bought them matching leather jackets. It was going to be awesome. 

 

~*~

The moment Shuri arrives, they begin the last-minute preparations for their video. Shuri attaches a special modification of the tech that cloaks Wakanda from the rest of the world to the motorcycle. The modification lets people see them, but not photograph them. They want to build a bit of excitement for the video, but they don’t want to give away their looks to the world at large. 

 

Once everything is ready, Peter starts the camera rolling.

 

“Hey everyone!” Shuri greets, enthusiasm flowing through her words, “Spider-Man and I are at the Avenger’s Compound, as per usual. Today we have a little something special for you guys.” Peter sets the camera on step and goes to stand at Shuri’s side.

“Shuri is going to drive a motorcycle into Queens!” Peter announces brightly.

Shuri makes finger guns, “you know it.”

“I’m actually like really scared too. Not because I think that girls can’t drive motorcycles or anything like that, because they absolutely can and should. Girls can do anything they want, even if it’s not typically “girly”. Like fix cars and play video games and whatnot. And boys can do whatever they want too! Paint your nails, braid your hair, doesn’t matter. Everyone can do anything that they want. I’m scared because Wakandans have this cool technology where they can like remotely drive cars and planes and stuff, and Shuri was practicing driving a motorcycle with that and she crashed three times.”

Shuri shrugs, “I’ve gotten better since then. He’s just dramatic.”

Peter turns to the camera, “she crashed three times!  _ Three _ ! I’m sorry that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”

Shuri just rolls her eyes. 

“So I took the liberty of obtaining some helmets.”

“Safety first!” Shuri interjects.

“Yes, exactly. I even customized them!” he shows the helmets to the camera.

“And because he’s a dork he also bought us leather jackets.”

“We have to look the part, Shuri!” he tells her as earnestly as he can manage.

She rolls her eyes again, “man, I wish I had more friends.”

Peter pretends he has been shot through the heart, “you wound me.”

“You betcha,” she mumbles, but there’s no real bite to it. 

 

Instead of responding, Peter tosses her a helmet. She catches it easily, and puts it on. Peter puts on his as well, over the mask. The jacket also goes over his suit. Once he looks the part, he turns expectantly to Shuri. She groans, but slips on the leather jacket. 

 

“Relax, you make a great biker chick,” Peter assures her.

“Yeah?” she quirks an eyebrow, “think I’ve got the mysterious hot girl who owns a motorcycle look down?”   
Peter nods, “killing it, in fact.”

(The viewers will later die over this interaction and add it to their vault of reasons why Spider-Man and Shuri are a couple.) 

 

Peter retrieves the camera, and then mounts the bike behind Shuri. She revs the engine and, tires screeching, peals out of the compound. The drive into New York will later be turned into a montage of them speeding down the highway, every once in a while interrupted by a bit of banter or little kids waving at them. They make it to New York without dying, which is probably a miracle. They then do a bit of shopping, to make the video a bit longer. Peter tries on a bright pink boa at one point, which Shuri laughs at for a solid minute and a half. One nice store owner gives them cheesy I <3 NY hats for free, so they wear those for the remainder of the time they film the video. They then stop the video and go to visit Aunt May.

 

~*~

About three hours later, Peter has the video camera back out, and Shuri is talking on camera once more.

“So, we intended to end the video with whatever you just saw, but two really funny things just happened to us, so we had to share. First off, we went to visit Spider-Man’s aunt because he hasn’t seen her since he got back from globe trotting with Stark,” a lie designed to make May less of a target, “and we get there, and-”

Peter appears next to Shuri, hands on hips, “and my old boss is on the couch!” he of course means Happy, “why was he there? Well, they claim that he simply had some business to do with her, but I highly doubt it.” Happy and Aunt May had indeed claimed Happy was simply there on business and that Happy was supposed to give May her special tracker in case she got kidnapped. It was small enough that a kidnapper would hopefully not notice it, and located in a place that was easy to reach when handcuffed or tied up. Peter would have believed that if Happy had also gone to his friend’s houses, which he hadn’t. MJ and Betty, as well as Ned, had simply gotten their trackers in the mail courtesy of drones. 

Peter shakes his head, “but that’s not the only thing that happened.”

Shuri makes a mystified face, “someone also stole our motorcycle.”

“We of course have a tracker on it so the person is probably going to get arrested, but it’s just kind of funny.”

Shuri looks as though she trying to decide whether to be angry or amused, “we even had the keys and everything.”

“Of course, people don’t do stuff like this in Wakanda.”

“Obviously not! We respect each other!” Shuri shakes her head, clearly mystified by the simplicity of life outside Wakanda.

“Man I wish I lived in Wakanda,” Peter thinks out loud.

“Doesn’t everyone?” Shuri snarks.

Peter shakes his head at her, “so now we’re car in my car.”

Shuri snorts, “it’s literally a Spider-Man car.”

“It’s amazing,” Peter defends himself.

“He made it on a whim with Stark earlier this summer because he said it would be cool to have a spider version of the batmobile,” she spares an amused glance to the camera.

“And now we get to use it for the first time.” 

“Yippie!” Shuri mutters sarcastically. 

 

Peter is behind the wheel, but he isn’t actually driving. Not that the viewers will know this, as they are on a stretch of straight highway. “Well we just thought we would update you guys on that, but we are actually going to go now.”

“Bye, everyone! Don’t get your stuff stolen!”

 

Once Shuri presses the end button on the camera, they both burst out laughing. “Not bad for one days work,” Shuri commends them. 

“Not at all,” Peter agrees, “I can’t believe that Happy was at my Aunt’s house.”

“When’d that become a thing?” Shuri asks.

“While I was gone, I think. Dad and I had a whole discussion about it the other night. Neither of us can figure out why they haven’t said anything yet.”

“Well maybe they will after tomorrow.”

“Maybe so. I can’t imagine why they would think that it matters, other than that they don’t want to stress me out even more? Not that it would be stressful for me, I mean, it’s a bit odd, but I think they could be a good couple.”

“Yeah, I can totally see it. They complement each other well.”

“How are T’Challa and Nakia, by the way?”

“Fine, I think. T’Challa keeps proposing and she keeps saying no, but that’s not unusual. They have a strange relationship.” 

“No luck with making either of them see sense?” Peter asks.

“Nope. It’s driving both me and Okoye crazy though. She says she wants to come with me the next time I visit you just to get away from them.”

“I’m afraid it’s not too much better in the States. Steve and Bucky are ridiculously in love with each other, and they seem to be finally figuring out how to be normal around each other with that development. Pepper and Tony are fine. Wanda and Vision...they have a strange relationship as well, but I think that’s because Vision isn’t, like,  _ human _ . Actually, now that I think about it, it probably is better in the States.”

“And then there’s us, and everyone thinks we’re a couple,” Shuri adds.

“Yeah,” Peter agrees. He feels like there’s more to say on that subject, but before he gets the chance, his phone rings, the sound amplified by the silence in the car. It’s Tony. Peter answers the call, and Tony pops up on the dash, “hey, kids. I found the guy who stole your motorcycle! He’s currently on his way to jail, and your motorcycle will be held at the police station until I send someone to pick it up.”

“Okay, thanks dad. We’re almost back.”

“Great! Cap cooked us all some special dinner thingy,” Tony waves his hand uncaringly, “should be ready when you get back. Full team dinner tonight.”

Peter nods, “cool. See you soon!”

Tony blows him an exaggerated kiss, and ends the call. 

Shuri and Peter turn to each other and grin, Steve’s cooking wiping the previous conversation from their memory for the time being. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your comments on the last chapter! To all my Peter/MJ shippers, I see you and I appreciate you, but I don't know that Peter and MJ have a place in this fic romantically. I would have to spend a lot of time writing to make them fit, and I frankly don't have that time! Sorry guys. I love Peter and MJ so much and I squealed when I saw the scene with the two of them in the trailer. 
> 
> As for Peter/Shuri, well, you guys are still going to have to see! I know, I'm a terrible person for making you guys wait. Sorry. The last chapter will be coming soon-ish. Hopefully. (Let's be honest probably not.) I'm doing my best guys, I promise. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading, and let me know about any errors in grammar, spelling or the like. ILY guys! Thanks!


	3. Press Conference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s the day of the big press conference and Peter’s a little nervous.

The carpet in Peter’s room had seen better days. Much better days. He had quite literally worn a path in the ground from his nervous pacing. He had woken up at three a.m. and for the past four hours had been like a hamster in a wheel, walking around and around his room. Peter’s pacing was kind of like him, not normal. He simply walked over the walls and ceiling instead of just turning around like a normal person. He’s not even sure why he’s this stressed. Well, he is, but he can’t figure out why it’s affecting him this badly. Earlier this week, he’d been having the time of his life rehearsing for the press conference with the Avengers and now he was pacing his room relentlessly. 

 

Tony seemed to have some sort of idea of Peter’s activities because he strolled through the door just as Peter took his third step on the ceiling. Peter didn’t bother to complete the lap, instead jumping off the ceiling in a perfect flip. 

 

“How you doing, kiddo?” Tony asks.

Peter gives him a small grin, “I’ve been better.”

Tony lets out a puff of air, “Yeah, I imagine. We can still call it off, if you want.”

Peter shook his head, “no, I want to do it. It’s just-”

“You don’t want anything to change.”

“Exactly. I want to keep making my YouTube videos with Shuri, and building Legos with Ned. I want to keep being a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and I want to go to Delmar’s for a sandwich. I want to go to the movies with my friends.”

Tony sighs, “and you’ll still be able to do most of that. It’ll just be different. Some of it will be good different and some will be bad different, but you’ll figure it out. And Pepper and I will be here to help you as you figure it out.”

“Yeah I know.” Peter states resolutely, “I can do this.”

Tony smiles at him and ruffles his hair, “now come on, Steve made pancakes and May is already up and talking to Shuri. I’m sure she has plenty of embarrassing stories you don’t want your girlfriend to hear.”

Peter groans, “for the last time, she’s not my girlfriend.”

Tony raises an eyebrow, “oh so you’re  _ still  _ denying it?.”

Peter shakes his head, “I hate you.”

“You know, I was in love with Pepper a long time before we started dating,” Tony tells him.

“Da _ aaad _ . I’m trying to get dressed.”

Tony puts up his hands in surrender, “just saying.”

“And I’m just saying that you need to leave,” Peter retorts.

“Shall I show our dear Princess the video of the time you got scared of a spider while we were watching movies and jumped onto the ceiling crying?”

“I take it back!” Peter screeched, “you can stay here as long as you like!”

Tony laughed and ruffled his hair and then  _ finally  _ left Peter alone to dress in peace.

 

~*~

 

It was finally time for the big reveal. Peter could peer out through the one way glass and see all the reporters, gathered, like a sea of vultures. He already had in noise moderating ear plugs. They were so small that they would never be noticed by the reporters, though. He also had in special contacts for his eyes. Right now, the stage was empty, the Avengers logo in the background. The whole room was jittering in excitement, a collective breath was being held. And they were waiting for him. Peter Benjamin Parker-Stark was the reason why there were approximately fifty reporters from across the globe crammed into a little room so tight there practically wasn’t air to breathe. 

 

He steps back from the glass, overwhelmed. Tony must either see this or simply sensed Peter’s unease as the glass promptly darkens, making the people on the other side no longer visible. May steps up and places a hand on his shoulder reassuringly. He gives her a weak smile.

 

“They’re gonna love you,” she whispers. “In fact, they already do.”

“You ready Pete?” Tony calls, “last chance to call this off by the way. We can come up with another announcement last minute.”

Pepper rolls her eyes at him, “who’s getting engaged this time?”

Tony raises a single eyebrow, “Nat and Clint, obviously.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Natasha splutters.

“My vote is on Steve and Bucky, personally,” Rhodey pipes up.

Bucky snorts, “that’s illegal, Colonel.”

Everyone turns to stare at Bucky. Even Steve. “Who’s going to tell him?” Sam asks.

“You mean it’s not?!?”

“Uhhh, no it’s not Buck,” Steve mumbles, “but let’s talk about that later, Peter should be our focus now.”

Peter nods to all of them, suddenly confident, “I’m ready.”

Tony claps his hands once, dramatically, “great! Let’s get this show on the road then!”

“Okay, Tony, you’re going out first, like we practiced. Say your part EXACTLY and then let the montage we made of Spider-Man show. Peter, you know your cue, come out when you see it.”

Peter nods, Tony salutes. Peter then puts on his suit via his watch, and Tony heads out onto the stage through the door.

 

“Hello, world!” Tony greets, his voice distant and coming through a little speaker they have set up. It’s only there so that everyone else knows exactly what’s happening, and is just a bit too loud to be categorized as a “background noise.”

Tony continues on speaking about how they have a new Avenger who will be officially joining them starting tomorrow, and then steps aside to let the video play. The first clip was taken when Peter jumped off a skyscraper. The first moments captivate the audience, and Peter can only assume they are all wondering who the new Avenger is. He can’t blame them. It’s not like the video is clear. Just before hitting the ground, though, a hand pops into the frame. The hand is covered in red high-tech spandex (inside joke) and shoots out a web. The room explodes. The montage then is more clear, showing some more footage from Peter’s perspective intermingled with action featuring him prominently. 

 

Just as the clip is about to end, Peter deftly jumps to the ceiling and shimmies to the trapdoor he knows to be above the stage. At the precise moment the video ends, he drops through the door, landing in a graceful crouch. He congratulates himself on his impeccable timing, and stands to face the crowd. Silence drapes over them like a blanket.

 

“I am Spider-Man,” Peter begins. “That’s all anyone has known me as for the past four or so years. I pride myself on being Spider-Man and I never want to stop being Spider-Man. As many of you know, I tend to help out the “little guy.” Becoming part of the Avengers is by no means going to change that, it will only mean I will officially be called upon for the bigger stuff too. It also means I get a paycheck.” He winks at the audience, and they laugh, charmed. He had hoped they would be. He sobers again, “but that’s not why we are here today. We’re here because as an Avenger, I’m required to reveal my identity to the world.” He pauses, gathering his confidence, “and I can tell you that as much as I love being Spider-Man, I also love being,” he pressed the button on his watch to remove his suit as he said the next words. “Peter Parker-Stark. Adopted son of Tony and Pepper Stark.”

 

There was a distinct crash from somewhere in the audience. 

“Before you ask,” Pepper said, coming through the doorway, “yes, we were aware that Peter was Spider-Man before the adoption. No, we did not make him Spider-Man, and yes, he really is as young as he looks.”

Natasha enters the stage and wrinkles her nose, “sort of.”

Peter fakes indignation, “hey! I turn eighteen tomorrow!”

“About eighty years younger than me,” Steve jokes, also entering the stage. Bucky won’t be a part of this conference.

 

Peter shoots him a quick smile, and then turns back to the audience of reporters. He goes on to detail his origin story, as well as how he met Tony Stark. He then talks about meeting the rest of the Avengers, and how he came to be adopted by Tony, everyone else filling in details when they need to. Eventually, they finish the rehearsed portion and open the room up to questions.

 

“So I think the burning question is are you really dating Princess Shuri?” the first reporter asks.

Peter lets out a quick embarrassed laugh. “Um.” His eyes flicker to where he can see Shuri just offstage.  _ Good question _ , Peter thinks. 

He serves the reporter what he hopes is a kind smile, “no comment?” His answer sounds anything but confident. 

“Next question?” Tony interjects smoothly.

“So you mentioned earlier that one of the contributing factors to the adoption was a field trip Peter took to Stark Industries with his high school, Midtown. Midtown is one of the most prestigious schools in the state. How did you like your experience there?”

“Just a quick clarification, Tony and I had already applied for adoption before the field trip. That was simply when we told him,” Pepper corrects.

“Well, I was there on a scholarship, and I guess that made me a target for bullying. Gather that many smart kids in one place and there’s bound to be competition for who is the smartest.”

“And the way the school dealt with the issue was...appalling,” Nat adds, “they simply swept it under the rug and told Peter that bullying was a part of life because the bully’s parents had money.”

“As I am sure you all know, that doesn’t fly with the Avengers,” Steve frowns, “and we offered many times to take legal action, but Peter always stopped us.”

Nat’s smile turns lethal, “but we won’t listen to him again so anyone found spreading misinformation about Peter will be sued.”

“And half the money will be donated to my charity,”  Peter adds. 

“The other half will go to the Avengers Fund,” Pepper adds, “as is the case with all the rest of the Avengers and any donations sent to them.”

Another reporter from the back was called on.

“So you said you turn 18 tomorrow. Now that everyone knows how young you are, what are you planning on doing to be a good role model?”

“Well, I hope I already am a good role model, but I plan on just like spreading a message of equality, love, and acceptance.”

“One more question?” Nat asks.

A reporter right up front is the lucky winner, “so you mentioned that you were the famously dubbed Stark Intern. Is this just a cover story or…?”

“Yes and no. Originally, that was my cover story. We had to give people a reason as to why I was gone and dropping out of clubs and such. Then one day, Tony randomly invited me to work in the lab with him and then it turned into a weekly thing in addition to Spider-Man. Then I stayed with him at the compound for the weekend once and he asked me if I wanted to be a real intern and I said yes. And then I told you the story from there, I just sort of...moved in. So it was never quite a typical internship, but he did teach me a lot about engineering and being a superhero and I did do work.”

“Mentor mentee situation,” Tony butts in.

“Yeah,” Peter agrees.

“And he really did make the products Tony and I showed off at the last press conference we held.”

“And he really does do like a superhero internship,” Steve contributes, “whenever we need the equivalent of a coffee run, a check up on small-scale crime related to some bigger things we’re working on, we send Peter.” Steve ruffles his hair affectionately. 

Peter makes a face, “but yeah, I do kind of have an internship, it’s not just as black and white as the usual teenager getting coffee.”

“Though we did ask him to bring us back coffee when he cane home from school once,” Tony winks.

Pepper looks down to her watch and Peter an intentionally non-subtle subtle gesture. 

“And that’s all we have time for today. Thank you everyone!” Peter closes.

The reporters all clap and Peter exits the stage, waving, with the rest of his family in tow. 

 

The moment he steps into the wings, May envelopes him in big hug. Tony ruffles his hair proudly, and Shuri sets off some sort of confetti cannon. Even Happy claps him on the back. 

 

“Alright! Who wants to come celebrate, follow me!” Tony announces to the room at general.

“We really don’t need to celebrate,” Peter protests, “it’s not that big of a deal.”

“Sure it is. Plus it’s your birthday tomorrow,” Tony disagrees. 

“And he’s been planning this for months,” Pepper adds, “he’s way too excited for you to not let him spoil you.”

“Alright,” Peter cedes, “let’s go.”

Tony takes this as his opportunity and shouts, “right this way!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry for leaving you guys for so long! I know this chapter is short but I was feeling guilty so hopefully you’re all fine with a shorter one to tide you over. 
> 
> Any ideas as to what’s Tony has planned?


	4. Birthday Eve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that the press conference is over, Tony has a surprise planned for his son’s eighteenth.

They all follow him through the halls and into the elevator. Tony taps a few buttons quickly on the screen, and the elevator descends quickly. The doors open with a pleasant ding.

 

The room is one that Peter has never seen before, but that’s not all together unusual. What is a bit odd is the seats. They’re somewhere between recliners and loveseats. They’re all also facing one direction. It almost looks like a movie theatre, except Peter doesn’t see a screen. Perhaps it will be a big holo screen. 

 

“Everyone take a seat!” Tony exclaims joyfully, “I’ll be right back!”

 

The seats are in pairs of two with an aisle down the middle, so everyone begins coupling off. Steve and Bucky take seats in the back, Wanda and Vision across the aisle from them. One row up from Wanda and Vision, Clint and Nat take a seat, and then Bruce and Rhodey file in across the aisle from them. Peter takes his seat next to Shuri in front of them, and May sits across the aisle from him with Happy. Peter and Shuri give each other conspiratory glances at that. Finally, Tony returns, and he sits right in front of Peter with Pepper. That leaves Sam to be the only one with two seats to themselves. 

 

Just after Tony sits, the room begins moving forward. Peter then realizes several things at once. One, he was the worst superhero ever because he can’t even identify a  _ plane _ . Two, Tony literally has an elevator that goes to a plane in his basement. And three, he’s going to be sitting by Shuri for the entirety of a plane ride. Joy. 

~*~

By hour two Tony and Pepper still haven’t told anyone where they’re headed, but they’ve all played seven rounds of never have I ever (21 and under version, at Tony’s insistence). Instead of alcohol, when you had to drink, you took shots of Cel-Ray. So far, Peter had done the least amount of drinking. Tony and Nat had done the most, to no one’s surprise. Rhodey and Bucky and, shockingly, Steve, gave them a good run for their money though. Shuri had thrown in a statement about never having lied to her parents about her nightmares and that had stopped the game for a bit as Peter had had to explain that. Eventually, though, he had managed to placate Tony, Pepper, and May. 

 

Aside from that, nothing too shocking had been revealed. Steve had regaled them with the story of the time he got proposed to by a man and almost accidentally told the reporter he was in love with Bucky in the following frenzy. Bucky laughed for a good while at that, making fun of Steve for nearly telling a reporter before him. Wanda confessed to occasionally waking up floating after intense dreams. The word nightmares was left unspoken, but it weighed heavily enough on the plane that it ought to have been at the bottom of the ocean. 

 

They arrive at their destination quicker than Peter anticipated. Tony is radiating maniacal glee as the plane begins to land. He’s tinted the windows black so that no one knows where they are, claiming he wants it to be a complete surprise. 

 

They touch down smoothly, and the doors open to reveal a small mansion on a private island. Tony turns to Peter, grinning gleefully. Peter rushes to give his dad a hug, still unbelieving of the fact that  _ the _ Tony Stark cares enough about him to plan something like this. 

 

Peter steps off the jet, “wow.”

Steve, who had found the grace to unattach himself from Bucky, follows behind him, “you’ve had a whole island this whole time and never thought to mention it as a safe house?”

“Really? That’s the first thing you ask me? No, “thank you Tony for being gracious enough to allow us to crash your son’s birthday party on a tropical island”?”

Steve shrugs, “it might have been useful.”

“For your information, it’s not even really my island,” Tony fires back.

Pepper loops an arm through her husband’s own, “it’s actually mine, Steve. An engagement present from my ridiculous husband.”

Steve doesn’t say anything more, and instead decides to help Happy get the luggage off the plane. It seemed as though Tony had packed for them. 

 

Peter meanwhile, explores the grounds of the mansion. They’re well-kept, but in a way that doesn’t detract from the natural beauty of the tropical plants. No plants are groomed into shapes they wouldn’t be in the wild, which gives the place a majestic beauty. Rhodey comes up beside him. Peter doesn’t have to acknowledge him because Rhodey knows Peter would have heard him come up. 

 

“Eighteen, huh?” Rhodey asks.

“Doesn’t feel any different than seventeen really,” Peter shrugs.

“You’re legally an adult now.”

Peter laughs, a touch of humor evident, “wasn’t I already?”

Rhodey sighs and sits on the bench, “You’re so much like Tony, you know that Parker?” 

Peter doesn’t answer. The question is probably rhetorical anyway. 

“He was the same way, always thinking he didn’t quite fit in because he was younger than everyone else but he  _ felt _ like he was older. I see that in you too. Maybe not in the same way as Tony, because he’s a bit of a special case, but with the team.”

Peter makes a face and begins to protest, “what do you mean?”

Rhodey cuts him off, “you don’t let yourself be only eighteen when you’re with us. Pepper says you’ve finally loosened up with her and Tony, but Peter, kiddo you’re allowed to be a kid with us too. Even if you’re legally an adult now, we would all support you just going out and having fun and being a kid. I’m worried you haven’t had enough time like that.” 

Peter shrugs, “Yeah but I also don’t feel like because I’m Spider-Man I don’t have the opportunity to do things kids my age typically do. I just don’t really want to.”

Rhodey sighs, “alright kiddo. I just hope you know that the team would never judge you for doing normal kid things.”

Peter gives him a genuine smile, “I promise I know that. At first, yeah, I was worried, but I’m not the same person anymore and I’ve gotten to know everyone so much better.”

Rhodey looks him up and down, as if assessing him, “okay.”

Peter glances back towards the airplane, “it looks like everyone is getting their luggage and heading inside.”

“Alright let’s go,” Rhodey ruffles Peter’s hair and then makes his way back over to where Tony is directing some sort of suitcase carrying robot to pick up his and Pepper’s luggage. 

 

“Hey kid!” Tony greets, “grab your luggage!”

Peter heads to the pile of Spider-Man themed bags, assuming it’s his. Tony buys everything customized so pretty much everything Peter owns is Spider-Man themed. In this case, however, he doesn’t seem to be alone. Steve is carrying three bags with Captain America decals, Nat’s have black widow spiders, Clint has a Hawkeye and a bow and arrow, and even Pepper and Happy have a pepper grinder and smiling emojis respectively. Peter assumes the rest of the Avengers have similarly themed decorated suitcases, but they’re inside. Tony himself has Iron Man mask decorations on his bags. 

 

He picks up his own bags, and grabs a couple of May’s as well. Tony is by no means a light packer, so they each have a minimum of three. Not that Tony actually packed the bags. It’s more likely he used the same robot Peter is following into the mansion. The robot leads the way into what Peter would describe as the front hallway area. It’s like in the movies where there is a grand staircase leading to the upstairs and a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. He guesses there is probably a name for it, but growing up in an apartment means he has no idea what it is.

 

Tony snaps his fingers as he enters and the door closes behind him. “So we’ve got eight rooms. Three have king beds, four have two doubles, and one is just a single. Happy I assume you’ll be taking that one?” Happy gives a nod of confirmation, “Alright then everyone else pair up and claim a room!”

 

Steve and Bucky, who still had their hands entwined, were the first to head up the stairs, Pepper and Tony on their heels. Wanda and Vision were just after them too. Peter was a little bit concerned to see May and Shuri chatting as they went to look for their own room. He had assumed Nat and Shuri would be roommates. Regardless, Peter assumed he was going to room with either Rhodey or Bruce. He was therefore surprised when Clint came up to him. 

 

“Bear with me,” Clint whispered so softly only Peter could hear it. Peter gave him a subtle nod. 

“Rhodey, Sam, you’re together. You two could use the bonding time,” Clint orders.

“Nope. Not happening,” Rhodey declares. 

Sam sighs, “whatever.”

 

Rhodey shoots him a look, but grudgingly grabs his bags and follows him up the stairs. Clint takes a hold of his own bags, too and leads the way to pick out one of the two remaining rooms. He and Peter end up choosing the room next to Shuri and May. It was the or the one by Pepper and Tony, which Clint adamantly refused, claiming that there were some things Peter don’t want to know. Peter had simply rolled his eyes and pointed out that: 1, he was familiar with typical adult relationships and 2, his room was next to theirs at home, but he had let Clint lead him down the hall anyway.

 

As soon as Clint shuts the door, Peter rounds on him, “Okay what’s happening?”

“I just thought Nat and Bruce needed a bit of a push. Rooming together seems like a pretty good push.”

Peter gave him a look.

“What? Maybe you should try it with Shuri.”

“You have a teenaged son, right?” Peter asks.

“You’ve met him,” Clint snarks back.

“Well then you should know never to leave a teenaged girl alone in a bedroom with a teenaged boy.”

Clint scoffs, “Peter, my innocent angel, you wouldn’t even dare try to kiss that girl unless she straight up told you too. And even then probably not. Cooper, he’s got a bit of his dad in him.”

Peter rolls his eyes, “and here I was thinking we’d finally made it past the stage where you all overestimate how good of a person I am.”

Clint shakes his head, “I really don’t think we do. Besides, it’s not like either of you two is my kid. I don’t care who you’re getting it on with.”

Peter fake vomits, “please never say that again.”

Clint shakes his head mockingly, “whatever you say, Mr. I’m familiar with adult relationships.”

“I’m still a child Clint!” Peter protests. 

“Nope. Nuh-uh. You’re 18 tomorrow so from here on out you're officially an adult so adult relationship applies to you too.”

Peter belly flops onto the bed, exasperated. “You know full well what I meant.”

“You discount my immaturity, Spider Child.”

Peter smirks from his place on the bed, “fair enough.”

 

Clint and Peter eventually manage to put away all of their belongings and then decide to explore the house. They find Bucky reading on a couch in the living room. Clint decides that it’s a good idea for Peter to hang out with Bucky, and then promptly leaves him to call his wife and children. Peter doesn’t quite understand why Clint would rather be here than with them, but he doesn’t pry. 

 

Instead, he browses the books on the shelf and tries to decide what to read. He eventually settles on novel titled  _ In the Heart of the Sea: the Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex,  _ and curls up on the couch near to where Bucky is reading. As Peter sits down, Bucky glances up and gives him a smile, the cover of the book he’s reading showing as he shifts. It’s  _ Pride and Prejudice. _ Peter swallows a chuckle at the formidable Winter Soldier reading novel by Jane Austen, and wonders what Flash would say. Probably if he told him Flash would call him a liar and tell him that superheros don’t read girly books. Peter barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes at the thought. As far as he was concerned, people should do things that made them happy and it wasn’t for the Flash’s of the world to tell them what they can and can’t do. 

 

Peter shook his head to himself and opened to the first page. At some point, Bucky set down his book and glanced Peter’s way. He probably hadn’t intended to disturb Peter, but his spidey senses often didn’t allow for Peter to miss things like that, so he set down his book as well.

 

Bucky looked him up and down, and Peter let him. He’d speak when he was ready. That was the thing about Bucky, sometimes he was quiet, but it was only because he hadn’t yet decided how best to say what he wanted you to hear. It was one of the things Peter likes about him. Of course, he also had tons of witty remarks and could stand his own in any banter, but it was the quiet Bucky Peter liked best. 

 

“You like her,” Bucky told him.

“Who?”

“The Princess. Shuri.”

“She’s my friend. My best friend, after Ned,” Peter explained.

Bucky cocked an eyebrow, “isn’t that how it always works?”

“I’m afraid I really don’t have much experience to speak from,” Peter deflected.

Bucky studies him again, “follow me.”

 

Peter couldn’t do much else but comply. Bucky was already walking at a determined pace out of the room, leading the way through the halls and up staircases. He finally led them to the rooftop garden.

 

“I’ve always liked being outdoors,” Bucky confided, “you don’t feel as trapped.”

Peter couldn’t even fathom how he had known exactly how to get to the roof after the brief time they’d been at the mansion, but he didn’t let it bother him. “It’s a beautiful garden,” Peter commented.

Bucky didn’t spare it a glance, “I suppose it is.”

Peter was suddenly struck to ask the question he’d been meaning to ask for the longest time, “how long did you know? That you were in love with Steve?”

Bucky sighed, “well, I suppose I more knew he was in love with me. He didn’t even know it himself, poor chap. Of course, I just let him be, told myself he’d get over it, and went out with as many girls as would have me. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that maybe I’d been a little in love myself. But by that time, he was already a hero and he had Peggy, and I just figured I missed my window of opportunity.”

“Except you didn’t.”

“Except I didn’t.” The ghost of a smile caresses Bucky’s face as he looks out to where the sun is beginning to set on the beach, “why? Do you have a confession?”

Peter shrugs and goes to the edge of the roof, leaning on the rail. “I was a sophomore in high school and there was this girl named Liz. She was a senior,” at that, Bucky nods in appreciation, “and I asked her out to homecoming. She said yes, but her dad turned out to be this super villain and so I left her at the dance to go fight him and he nearly killed me. After the fight, he was put in prison and she moved to Oregon.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky begins.

Peter cuts him off, “I realize now that I don’t think I really liked her. She was pretty and smart and she was a senior, but I think I more liked the idea of her than her, really.” Peter then rushes to add, “I know it sounds bad but..”

Bucky interludes, “she just want the one.”

“Right. Which is fine and I wish her no harm. So then I began spending more time with MJ, you met her once, I think.”

Bucky nods.

Peter continues, “and I thought I liked her. We kissed once, on a school trip, but nothing really ever happened after that. Later, she came out as aro and ace to me. Aro is basically just where you just don’t feel romantic attraction, and ace is where you just don’t feel sexual attraction. Which was fine, and I’m not sure I liked her either. I definitely liked her more than Liz, but I still just didn’t quite feel it.”

Bucky comes and looks out over the rail with him. There is silence for a time.

 

“And so now you’re afraid that you’re cursed? Or that you don’t really feel anything for Shuri either?”

Peter hakes his head, “no, that’s not quite it. I just… Shuri is like my soulmate, you know? We just kind of click. But honestly, Bucky, I wouldn’t even know how to go about dating her if that’s what I want.”

Bucky pats him on the shoulder, “Well it sounds like you have two things to figure out then.”

Peter gapes at him, “that’s all you’re going to say?”

Bucky shrugs, “you gotta make your own choices kid. If I choose for you, I might choose wrong.”

“I could choose wrong too!” Peter yells after Bucky, who has started descending the stairs.

“As long as it’s your choice, it’s not the wrong one,” Bucky tells him as he disappears.

Peter sighs and looks out over the roof, pulling out his phone and snapping a quick picture. 

 

**Spider-Man** @starkintern

The view from where I’ll be turning 18 tomorrow.

 

He’d changed his name to Spider-Man on twitter after much internal debate between Peter and Spider-Man, but ultimately decided that the public would probably find it easier to look him up if he had his name as Spider-Man. Or at the very least, since he was verified, they’d know it was him for sure. 

 

Hearing footsteps, he turns to the stairs to see Shuri. He quirks a smile her direction. She makes her way over to him and leans on the railing. 

 

“Enjoying the view?” Shuri asks.

“Yeah.”

“Got anything you want to do before you’re officially an adult?”

He looks over to her, “maybe.”

“Just maybe?” 

“I don’t know that I necessarily still need to be seventeen while I do it. I don’t think I’ll wake up tomorrow and be a completely different Peter.”

Shuri nods, “fair enough. Well if you change your mind, let me know.”

Peter looks at her and wonders what she knows. More than she’s letting on, he’d wager, “will do.”

“Now come on,” she grabs his hand and drags him across the roof. “We have some celebrating to do.”

~*~

It turned out that the Avengers has planned a whole part in the time Peter had been reading and talking to Bucky. He was touched and not too surprised. After all, it was rare for anyone to have any time to relax in a house full of superheroes. They had parties until midnight, when they all had toasted to Peter’s birthday and ate cake as if it was New Years Eve. It was ridiculous and cheesy, but Peter loved them for it.  

 

Finally, they had all retired to bed. Clint was already asleep, but Peter was awake and thinking. He was just about to lie down when his phone pinged. 

 

**Tony Stark** @iamironman

My Birthday Boy @starkintern

(PeterOnThor’sShoulders.img)

 

The photo he had posted was of Peter on Thor’s (Thor’s!) shoulders, blowing out candles on a cake held up by Wanda’s magic. He was grinning from ear to ear.

 

**Tony Stark** @iamironman

And just to embarrass him:

(PeterAndShuri.img)

 

The next photo was clearly taken when Shuri and Peter were talking on the roof. Shuri was leaning on her shoulders out slightly over the edge, but her face was turned just enough that it was clear she was looking at Peter. His position mirrored hers and the di light set off by the orange of the setting sun gave them a strange hue that made it seem as if they were glowing. 

 

**Spider-Man** @starkintern

Replying to @iamironman

When did you even take that and how did I not notice?

 

He then retweeted the first tweet.

 

**Tony Stark** @iamironman

Replying to @iamironman @starkintern

I have my ways. World, look out for more embarrassing photos of Peter in about six hours. Until then! 

 

Peter rolled his eyes fondly, turned off his phone and slipped under the covers, not letting himself dwell on tomorrow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should this be the last chapter? I’m not sure. I feel like it ended in a good place but I also wanted Peter and Shuri to film another video and to release bloopers and I want all the rest of the Avengers to post Peter’s embarrassing photos. What do you guys think?


	5. Birthday Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter celebrates his birthday in traditional Avengers fashion, which includes lots of embarrassment and competitions!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes. It’s been a bit. In honor of ffh I managed to get this chapter finished tonight. Technically it’s already started showing in the East Coast, but I did my best. Enjoy!

Peter woke up to his phone’s cheerful buzzing. He lifted his head groggily to read the time. 9:37. Wayyy too early to be up. He sighed and picked up his vibrating annoyance of a phone and cursed himself for not putting it on mute. 

 

**Black Widow** @mankiller

My precious Паук малыш is officially an adult! I love you angel boy. @starkintern

(Peter.mov)

 

Peter clicked on the video, hoping beyond hope it wasn’t what he thought it was. It loaded briefly and then Peter, unmasked, came on the screen. He jumped up and completed three and a half flips before landing headfirst in the foam pit. The camera went shaky as Nat shook with laughter.

 

**Spider-Man** @starkintern

Replying to @mankiller

I hate you. So much. That video was OUR SECRET. 

 

Peter closed his eyes and looked at the other replies. 

 

**Annie Davis** @blackwidowannie

Replying to @mankiller

Oh my god. Spider-Man and Black Widow TOGETHER?!!?! And Spider-Man is such a cutie, @iamironman where have you been hiding him all this time???

 

**Iron Fanatic** @Isi1dur

Replying to @mankiller

Ahhhhhhhh now I all I need for my life to be complete is @memeshuri to do a birthday post that confirms #PrincessSpider / #webclaws.

 

**Jenni** @jenniboo311

Replying to @mankiller

Oh my god he really just face planted. Spider-Man out here representing us. 

 

Peter sighed heavily, not bothering to read any more as his phone buzzed again. He glanced at the notification. Clint. 

 

**Hawk-I** @thegreatesthawkeye

Happy Birthday, squirt! Here’s to a lifetime of prank wars. Now that you’re an adult there is no more holding back. @starkintern

(PeterSlimed.img)

 

Peter groaned. From the photo, you could barely tell it was Peter, he was so covered in slime. That had been one of the first prank wars Clint had started with him. 

 

**Spider-Man** @starkintern

Replying to @thegreatesthawkeye

Please. One of us can stick to the ceiling and is 18. The other is a moderately competent with a bow and is middle aged.

 

Almost immediately, he got a reply.

 

**Hawk-I** @thegreatesthawkeye

Replying to @thegreatesthawkeye @starkintern

Now it’s on. 

 

**Spider-Man** @starkintern

Replying to @thegreatesthawkeye @starkintern

You bet. 

 

**Caw Mc’Freaking Caw** @shootmehawkeye

Is anyone else living for Spider-Man rn? He’s like??? The cutest??? Must protect???

 

_ Yes _ , Peter sighed internally,  _ I’ve been told. _

 

**Pepper Stark-Potts** @pepperpotts

A collage of Peter. Happy eighteenth my beautiful boy, here’s to so many more. 

(peter.img)

 

Peter smiled. Pepper had picked out the best photos. Him working in the lab, him on top of a skyscraper in costume, the background slightly blurred, him with the sun setting behind him in L.A., him curled up on the couch asleep, face illuminated by the TV still on off-camera, and him covered in grease after helping Tony repair a car. 

 

**Spider-Man** @starkintern

Replying to @pepperpotts

<3

 

**Spider-Man** @starkintern

Retweet @pepperpotts

A collage of Peter. Happy eighteenth my beautiful boy, here’s to so many more. 

(peter.img)

 

**Krysta Sevan** @lollipopgeneration

Replying to @pepperpotts

We’ve only known who he is for a day and yet he already owns my whole soul. Peter Parker, wherever you are, thanks for making the world a little less dark  

 

**Spider-Man** @starkintern

Replying to @pepperpotts @lollipopgeneration

Just doing my job. ;) 

 

Peter smiled. It was always nice to receive messages like that. Speaking of which, he needed to check on the Midtown kids. He decided to start with Flash. Peter searched up Flash and clicked on his profile. He scrolled down to the tweet right after the official reveal.

 

**Flash Thompson** @flashthompson01

I WENT TO SCHOOL WITH SPIDER-MAN

 

**Flash Thompson** @flashthompson01

REAL ACTUAL SPIDER-MAN

 

**Flash Thompson** @flashthompson01

WE WERE FRIENDS AND I NEVER KNEW

 

**Flash Thompson** @flashthompson01

I HAVE PICTURES

(decathlonteam.img)

 

**Flash Thompson** @flashthompson01

OH MY GOD I KNOW A SUPERHERO

 

**Flash Thompson** @flashthompson01

I’M FRIENDS WITH A SUPERHERO

 

Peter actually laughed out loud.

 

**Spider-Man** @starkintern

Replying to @flashthompson01

No, we’re actually not friends, Flash. Unless I mistook the name-calling and shoving into lockers? Or the fact that you made fun of my real friend’s weight. 

 

That should take care of that. He opened up everyone else he could think of, mostly just kids commenting that they went to school with Spider-Man and posting pictures where they were with him. No one else had falsely claimed anything about him, though, so Peter let them have their five seconds of fame with a smile. 

 

While he had been checking up on the Midtown kids, a couple other Avengers had posted, so Peter went to check those out. 

 

**Captain America** @cptamerica

Happy birthday to our youngest Avenger/Ballerina @starkintern

(TippyToesPeter.img)

 

Peter clicked on the image. It was him right after summer started in the training room at the compound. He was balanced on the tips of his toes on Bucky’s hand, stretched up as tall as he could go. He had the other leg resting against the side of his knee to form a triangle and was wearing a tutu, ballet slippers, and tights. 

 

**Erik Smythers** @erik_blacksmythers

Replying to @cptamerica

Ok, is anyone else wondering what on EARTH goes down at the Avenger’s compound? Like, they obviously planned this. How do they have time to save the world? 

 

**Kendall Jenner** @knockoffkardashian

Replying to @cptamerica

How can he even hold him? 

 

**Jesus For Real** @winterjbb

Replying to @cptamerica @knockoffkardashian

@starkintern is actually really light! But even still, I didn’t hold him for much longer than it took to get that picture. 

 

Peter shook his head, remembering that day. Nat had been giving him ballet lessons to help with his fighting, and he had lost a bet to Sam so he was wearing the tutu. WHen Bucky and Steve saw him, they thought it was a great moment for a photo, and Bucky had suggested Peter do ballet whilst standing on his hand. Nat had approved, saying it would be good for his balance. Steve had then given his phone to Nat and lifted Peter up high enough so that he would be able to reach Bucky’s hand. It took them several tries, but they did manage to finally capture the perfect photo. 

 

**Happy Hogan** @happyhogan

@starkintern is officially eighteen. Go wish him a good birthday because even though he never stops talking, he’s a good kid. 

 

**Spider-Man** @starkintern

Replying to @happyhogan

AWWWWW thanks Happy, I always knew you loved me! 

 

**Jesus for Real** @winterjbb

Happy birthday to one of the only minors I can stand, @starkintern

(PeterandCap.img)

 

Peter grins. He doesn’t even have to look at the photo to know what it is. Peter’s sitting on Cap’s shield, which Cap is holding above his head while doing lunges. Peter is laughing in the picture. Peter happens to know that Bucky has this photo framed and by his bedside, but Bucky doesn’t know that he knows that. 

 

**Spider-Man** @starkintern

Replying to @winterjbb 

So happy I could make the list! 

 

He then puts down his phone, deciding to leave the rest of the Avengers birthday wishes for later. His feed has been crammed up enough by him retweeting every message from them, his followers need a break.

 

He then makes his way down to the kitchen where the majority of the team is drinking coffee and chatting quietly. Tony sees him first and his eyes light up.

 

“Peter! Happy Birthday!”

Peter laughs, “you already wished me Happy Birthday today.”

Tony shrugs, “you only turn eighteen once kiddo. Rhodey, do you remember how we spent my eighteenth? We-“

“Yes, Tony I do. What I can’t imagine is how  _ you _ do, given what it was like.”

Tony just shoots him a grin. 

Just then, Thor ambles into the room, “good morning, friends!”

“Thor!” Peter squeaks, “you’re still here!”

“Of course I am, Tonyson. Why pass up an opportunity to party when I was so kindly invited by your father?”

Peter doesn’t have a response, “well where did you sleep?”

“Why on a bed, of course!”

Nat interjects, “I slept with Shuri in her room.”

At that Shuri comes down the stairs, cackling, “and you’ll never guess where May slept. Or I should say, who she slept with.”

Peter covered his ears, “nope. Don’t say it. Nope. Nope. Nope.”

“Happy!” Shuri gloats. 

“Nope. Nope. Nope,” Peter says again.

Tony is laughing too, “priceless.”

Pepper frowns slightly, “why didn’t they tell us?”

Natasha looks pointedly towards Tony and Shuri, who are still cracking up, to Clint, who looks pissed off (probably because his master plan was foiled), and Sam, who is shooting darts from a Nerf Gun bow pretending to be Cupid. “Probably because of this.”

Pepper follows her gaze and sighs, “you’re right.”

It is this exact moment that May and Happy walk in. The whole kitchen freezes, but that only makes them look all the more suspicious.

“I take it Shuri told you then?” May asks.

Peter nods dumbly, and then goes to the stove where a pile of pancakes is sitting. He grabs a dozen or so and then drowns them in syrup. Steve gives him an unimpressed look.

 

“I deserve this Steve. I just found out my aunt has been dating Happy without telling me.”

Steve sighs, but doesn’t say anything more.

“You’re not upset, are you?” May asks hurriedly.

“No. In fact I thought you two had something going. I just didn’t think you actually officially were a couple. That’s all.”

“Well alright, honey,” May says, ruffling his hair, “I’m glad you’re okay with it, because Happy and I, well, we’re really happy together.”

Happy’s face darkens, “not if you make that pun again.”

May just smiles and plants a brief kiss on his cheek before she, too, attacks the pancakes. Happy pretends to be angry, but even he can’t hide the slight tilt to his lips. Peter doesn’t comment on it.

 

“By the way,” Thor announces, “my brother is coming too.”

“Loki!?” Peter asks.

“So far as I know I have no other brothers.”

Tony looks like he might object, so Peter intervenes. “I’ve always wanted to meet Mr. Loki!”

“Oh god I thought we finally got past the calling everyone Mr. phase,” Tony groans.

“I’m polite,” Peter objects.

“You could take some notes,” Pepper teases.

“Hey now!” Tony laughs.

 

Peter shovels in the rest of his pancakes. “I promised my friends I’d video call them for my birthday, but I’ll be back in a bit. Shuri, you coming?”

“Sure.”

 

Peter leads the way to the room he’s sharing with Clint and sets up his holoscreen. It’s not long before MJ and Ned have joined. 

 

“Ned!” Peter exclaims, “hows Chicago?”

“Peter-Man!” Ned exclaims cheerfully.

“Hi MJ, nice to see you. Why thanks Peter. Happy Birthday,” MJ mutters sarcastically.

Peter rolls his eyes playfully at her, “I haven’t seen Ned since I was in L.A.”

MJ laughs, “I’m just messing with you, loser.”

“Chicago is great. I’m almost sad that I didn’t decide to go to Northwestern.”

“Don’t you dare even say that,” Peter threatens, “you’re already going to be too far away next year.”

“No farther than me,” Shuri reminds him.

Peter pouts, “you should just move to the US.”

“And leave Wakanda? I think not.”

“Fair enough.”

“So how’s being 18?” Ned asks.

“The same, pretty much. I tried to convince dad to let me have some beer last night, but his answer was still no,” Peter laments.

“Not that you can get drunk,” Shuri points out.

“You can’t?” Ned asks.

“His metabolism is too fast,” Shuri explains.

Ned nods wisely, “makes sense.”

“Wow you really are a loser,” MJ laughs.

Peter is mock affronted, “excuse me which one of us is a superhero?”

“Definitely MJ,” Shuri responds.

“Have I mentioned how much I like your girlfriend, Peter?” MJ asks.

“Several times,” Shuri grins, “but he’s actually my fiancé.”

“Oh my god Shuri!” Peter whines.

She just gives him one of her smirks.

“So what are you going to do for your eighteenth?” MJ changes the subject.

“I’m not sure to be honest. I think dad has some plans. I think we’re going to spend some time on the beach soon,” he looks to Shuri and she shrugs.

“That’s so cool!” Ned sighs, “where even are you?”

“I have no idea. Dad just flew us to his private island.”

“You’re so lucky Peter,” Ned shakes his head. 

Peter smiles at his friend, “you’re right. I’m lucky because I have the greatest friends in the world!”

Both Shuri and MJ roll their eyes, “he’s such a sap,” MJ tells Shuri.

“Don’t I know it,” Shuri agrees.

“I take it back,” Peter pouts in mock anger.

Shuri rolls her eyes at him, “honestly you’re such a baby.”

“Where’s Betty?” Peter asks, once more changing the subject.

“Her grandparents are in town. I talked to her this morning. She was going to try and join the call if her mom let her. I guess she didn’t.”

Peter shrugs, “it’s fine. I saw her this week anyway.”

“And how are things going on that front Ned?” Shuri asks.

“With Betty? Great. We haven’t talked about what we’re going to do for college yet though.”

Shuri looked at him, “is that usually a problem? Because you won’t be living in the same area anymore?”

Ned sighs, “plenty of people make it work, but it’s less the distance and more that we just won’t be in the same world anymore. She’ll be having different experiences and meeting different people.”

“And so will you,” MJ reminds him.

“I wouldn’t know anything about any of that,” Shuri says, “before you guys I didn’t really talk to people my own age.”

“Either it will be okay or it won’t,” Peter tries to comfort him, “and either way you’ve got me and you’ve got MJ.”

“And me,” Shuri adds, punching Peter in the shoulder for not including her.

“And Shuri,” Peter adds, fake massaging his shoulder so Shuri thinks it at least hurt him a little. 

The door to Peter’s room opens and Nat pokes her head in. “We’re all going to head down to the beach in a half hour, so you should start getting ready.”

“Ok.” Peter responds.

“Are you talking to your friends still?” Nat doesn’t even wait for an answer before she crosses the room and sits on Peter’s other side, messing up his hair as she does. 

“Gah! Nat! Why do all of you do that all the time?”

She ignores him, “Hello MJ, Ned. How have you been?”

“Decent. Preparing for college,” MJ answers for the both of them. 

“I’m in Chicago, which has been great,” Ned adds for himself.

Nat nods, “I like Chicago well enough. You should probably see the sights while you’re there. Peter will hopefully still be here when you get back, though you never know with him.” Peter simply shrugs. She’s not wrong. Nat makes a bit of small talk with MJ about some protest, then turns to Peter expectantly. He takes the cue. 

“Alright well guys it’s been good to catch up a bit but we’ve got to get going,” Peter tells Ned and MJ. 

“See you Peter! Happy Birthday!” Ned smiles.

“Bye Ned! Bye MJ,” Peter closes. They respond in kind and Peter ends the call.

“Alright you two, go get ready! Peter’s eighteenth birthday extravaganza has only just begun!” Nat says mischievously. 

Shuri turns to him and grins and jumps up from off the bed, “let’s get this bread!”

Peter laughs but copies her actions, going to the closet to pick one of the three (3!) swimsuits his dad has packed for him. Classic Tony.

~*~

Soon enough, they’re all gathered in the living room. It’s funny for Peter to see everyone slathering on sunscreen as Steve runs about making sure no one is avoiding putting it on. If anyone had told him five years ago what life he would be living, he would have never in a million years even dreamt it would be as good as this.

 

Once Cap is satisfied, Tony begins leading the charge down to the beach. Nat and Shuri are chatting and Peter’s fairly sure it’s not a conversation he wants to be a part of, so he falls into step next to Thor. Thor gives him a once over.

 

“So, Man of Spiders, when will you tell Lady Shuri of your feelings for her?”

“What?” Peter squeaks, still not believing he’s talking to the real actual god of thunder. 

“Don’t avoid the question.”

“Who says I was?” Peter challenges in a rare burst of confidence.

“My brother is the trickster god, I know all about avoiding the truth,” Thor declares.

Peter sighs, “it’s not that simple.”

“Ah yes. Nothing ever is for you humans. You like her, tell her. Otherwise she’ll end up leaving you for someone else.”

“Great pep talk,” Peter retorts, and he had to physically restrain himself from slapping a hand over his moths because  _ he was just sassy to a god _ .

“I am known for them,” Thor responds, oblivious to Peter’s sarcasm.

“So does your ax work the same as the hammer? And only people who are worthy can wield it?” Peter asks, his fanboy side overcoming him finally.

“Well of course. I can also summon it the same as my old hammer.”

“Could you have the Avengers try to lift it again tonight? I need a picture of dad’s face. We’re in a Twitter war!”

Thor frowns, “are you not his son? Sons should not battle their fathers. Well, in my family I’m sure it has happened quite often, but we are hardly normal.”

“Oh! Twitter is a social media website! We’re not actually like fighting each other, just posting embarrassing photos.”

“Sounds like something my brother would enjoy. What is a social media?”

Peter thinks for a moment, “social media is like a worldwide newspaper, if individual people each had their own newspaper all about themselves. So like on mine, I post things about myself and my friends, and other friends of mine or other people can subscribe to see what I post.”

Thor nods, “I see. And how much does this cost?”

“It’s free.”

“Would you help me get the individual newspaper later then?”

Peter nods enthusiastically, in too much of a shock to do much of anything else.

“And my brother too. It might help the people of Earth to forgive him.”

“Of course Mr. Thor!” Peter finally manages to choke out.

“FIANCÉ!” Shuri yells from the beach, interrupting Peter’s conversation with Thor.

Peter sighs heavily but jogs towards her anyways. 

“We’re still not engaged,” Peter informs her when he reaches her.

She hums, “keep telling yourself that.”

 

Peter glances down the beach. Tony and Pepper are setting up an umbrella together. He heads towards them. The moment Tony sees him, his face splits into a grin. He reaches out and ruffles Peter’s hair. Peter makes an indignant noise. Tony just smiles like he knows Peter secretly loves it. He’s not wrong. Pepper looks at them with a find smile and then stretches out on a towel under the umbrella. 

 

“Are you going to come swimming?” Peter asks his dad.

Tony hesitates, “no, I’ll stay here with Pepper.”

 

Peter nods. He must have had a nightmare last night. Peter doesn’t press the issue, instead kicking off his sandals and rushing to tackle Nat who’s already in the water. She, of course, easily flips him off before he’s even touched her, but it was worth a shot. He goes crashing into a wave. 

 

When he surfaces again, he shoots Nat a smile. She swims gracefully to him, a smirk playing across her features. “You should know better than to try that by now.”

He shrugs, “one day.”

Suddenly, his spidey sense goes off and he whips around and uses the same technique Nat just used on him to throw off his attacker. Shuri crashes into the sea.

“Drat.” She sighs as she surfaces, “and Nat was even distracting you.

“Spidey sense,” he reminds her.

“I know,” she grumbles. It’s Peter’s turn to smirk now. Shuri splashes water in him, but he just laughs. 

“Oooooooo let’s play Avenger’s chicken!” Peter suggests. 

Shuri looks to him, confused.

“It’s like chicken but wayyyyy more intense,” he explains.

“I don’t even know what chicken is apart from the bird.”

“So people partner up, one person is in the water, the other person is on their shoulders. They then fight another pair, trying to knock the other person who is on top into the water,” Peter does his best to explain.

“I’m in,” Shuri agrees. 

“Cool. Let’s go get everyone together.”

 

It wasn’t too much of a hassle to get the Avengers to assemble. Everyone but Tony, Pepper, Happy, May, and Vision wanted to play. Vision offered to be referee, though. Then it was time to pick teams. Citing fairness, there had been a ban on any two of Peter, Nat, and Steve being on the same team. Any of them together had proved unstoppable, Peter being sticky and freakishly strong, Nat being well,  _ Nat _ , and Steve being too strong. 

 

That being the case, Happy was assigned to pick the teams. Rhodey and Peter were placed together, Bruce and Nat, Steve and Sam, Clint and Bucky, and Wanda and Thor. Wanda had been prohibited from using her magic, and Thor from using his thunder. Bruce was obviously not to become the Hulk if at all possible.

 

The battles were intense and long, but after the bracket of teams had been played through, Clint and Bucky emerged victorious. They then headed back up to the house to get lunch. It was mostly a fend for yourself type of lunch as no one felt like making anything, and Tony couldn’t exactly order take out. 

 

As Peter was devouring his sandwich, his phone pinged with a notification. He slid it out of his pocket, and glanced at it. Bruce. He looked to where Bruce was sitting across the table, and Bruce simply gave him a shy smile. 

 

**Bruce Banner** @doctorhulk

Happy Birthday Peter! 

(SpiderPeter.img)

 

The image was of Peter, obviously testing a new suit. He wasn’t wearing a mask, but he had it in his hand and was hanging from the ceiling by his feet. He wasn’t looking directly at the camera, but he was smiling at someone not in the shot. Tony, in all likelihood. 

 

Peter looks up from his phone and catches Bruce’s eye once more, giving him a wide grin. He then retweets the photo. He scrolls through a few more birthday wishes from strangers, replying to as many as he can. He finally stumbles upon a dedicated shipper.

 

**Spider Fanmail** @spideyman

Is anyone else upset that we’ve had radio silence from Shuri? I mean, it is @starkintern ‘s birthday…

 

There are several replies under it from people expressing agreement. Peter sighs heavily, and decides to simply skip over the tweet. He’s absolutely sure Shuri will post something, but she has a penchant for being dramatic so she’ll probably wait for a bit to build up anticipation and then make four different tweets simultaneously. He’s also convinced that she knows more about Tony’s plans than she’s letting on, so she could simply be waiting on photos from the rest of the day.

 

“Is everyone done eating?” Tony asks.

Peter shoves the last of his sandwich in his mouth and nods. 

“My brother should be here any moment,” Thor announces.

Tony doesn’t hide his displeasure very well, “lovely,” he mutters.

Peter, however, jumps up from his seat, “awesome!”

“What’s awesome?” drawls a voice from behind him.

Peter whips around, confused as to why his spidey sense didn’t go off. “Wow. You must be Mr. Loki, Thor’s brother. I’m Peter! You might know me as Spider-Man? It’s great to meet you!” 

Loki looks taken aback, “it is?”

“Oh yeah! I love your card tricks! They’re mesmerizing!” Peter gushes.

Loki looks as if he’s on the verge of tears, and Peter’s about to apologize when he speaks again, “thank you, young Peter. Though I must ask how you found them.”

“If you know where to look, it’s all over YouTube. Can you teach me some time?”

“I would be honored.”

Peter turns back to the rest of the Avengers, grin stretching from ear to ear. They are all frozen, faces of shock adorning all of their features. 

“You do card tricks brother?” Thor is the first to speak.

“I spent a brief amount of time on Earth and I became very skilled in them,” Loki explains, “I just wasn’t aware that anyone cared to watch them.”

“I love them,” Peter tells him sincerely. 

“Brother, where did you find such a pleasing child?” Loki asks.

Thor shrugs, “he is the son of Tony.”

Loki raises an eyebrow, “I cannot imagine  _ he _ could spawn such an innocent creature.”

“Hey! I’m not innocent!” Peter exclaims in harmony with Tony’s “I I didn’t  _ spawn _ him.”

Pepper steps forward and places her hands on Peter’s shoulders, “Peter is our adopted son.”

“You’re adopted as well?” Loki asks. 

Peter’s nods, “my parents died in a plane crash.”

“And how old did you say you were, Young Peter?” 

“Eighteen,” Peter responds to Loki’s question.

“You are far too kind for this world I’m afraid.” 

Peter looks him right in the eye, “there is no such thing as being too kind, Mr. Loki. Everyone deserves a friend, and everyone deserves to be loved.”

Loki turns away abruptly, “Stark, I’m sure you have a busy schedule that you’ll no doubt expect us to follow, let’s get in with it.”

“You clearly have mixed me and Steve up,” Tony lashes back, but there is amusement in his eyes as he assesses Loki’s obvious attempt to shift the center of attention from himself. “Nevertheless, there are a couple more things I had planned.”

 

Peter would normally insist that that wasn’t necessary and he was more than thrilled with what had all Tony had already done, but he knew his dad would insist on doing whatever he had planned anyway and it wasn’t worth protesting. Besides, it would almost certainly be awesome and Peter didn’t want to miss the fun plans. 

 

As it turned out, Tony had planned a island-wide scavenger hunt. Peter and Clint were assigned to be the captains of the two teams. Peter’s first choice was obviously Nat, and Clint countered by picking Wanda. Peter then chose Bucky, as he figured an ex-assassin should be good at scavenger hunts. Clint, in turn, chose Steve. Peter’s third choice was Loki, and Clint’s Rhodey. Peter then picked Shuri, and Clint Vision (probably for Wanda). To conclude his team, Peter picked May and Happy, and Clint got Bruce, Thor, and Sam. Clint’s team had one more person as they didn’t have Nat. Tony and Pepper has set up the scavenger hunt, so they were abstaining and instead promised to be impartial judges.

 

“All right everyone. There are several clues hidden across the island. While you do not need to all stay together all the time, you all must work together as a team. To ensure this, in order to gain access to each clue, everyone will have to place their thumbs on it. Tony and I have decided to give you five minutes to discuss strategy, pick a base,” Pepper gestures to the screen behind her, which displays the four options, “and choose a team captain. Go!”

 

Peter’s team unanimously votes Nat captain, and then decides that Bucky and Nat should be their spies. Shuri is obviously assigned to be tech support/manager, with May as her assistant and also team nurse. Happy was the lookout, and Peter and Loki were the people who would actually be retrieving the clues. 

 

They had picked the base that was best equipped, but farthest from the clues. Clint’s team, captained by Steve, chose the base closest to the clues with the better communications system. Peter’s team was simply counting on Shuri being able to upgrade the devices. Pepper and Tony then gave both teams the location for their bases and sent them off. 

 

“I didn’t know this island had any lakes. My lord, it seems too small,” May whispered just loud enough for Steve to hear. 

The rest of the team pretended to shush her hurriedly. Steve’s team seemed to take the bait as they all looked at each other excitedly. In reality, their base was listed as being on top of the roof of the house. 

 

Their team quickly makes their way to the mansion, but they take a couple of detours to hopefully confuse the other team. Once they reach the mansion, everyone grabs supplies from their rooms, Peter himself changes into his suit. When he reaches the roof, Shuri is already working on a cloaking mechanism. Peter immediately begins helping her, and in a fairly short amount of time, they have a decent cloaking mechanism. Once they’re done with that, everyone gathers inside the circular tent structure to open the first clue which Nat had found in their base. 

 

_ He fears nothing but water,  _

_ Standing eternally.  _

_ Medusa’s son. _

 

Peter wrinkles his nose. “That seems too easy.”

“Maybe, but think about it. This island’s huge,” May adds helpfully.

“Just to clarify, we’re thinking this is a statue, right?” Happy questions.

There is a chorus of yes, so the team continues theorizing.

“There’s a statue garden down there,” May points to the grounds of the mansion.

“No, that doesn’t make sense. Our base was supposed to be the farthest from the clues,” Loki points out. 

Bucky nods, “but Clint’s team doesn’t know that. Nat and I can start making a decoy at one of the statues while you and Peter begin searching the island.” 

“Good plan,” Peter agrees. 

 

Peter quickly messes with the controls for his suit on his wrist, placing the suit into camouflage mode. Thus settled, he turns to Loki, who has magically transformed his outfit into more earthy tones. Peter leads the way down the stairs and slips out of the house soundlessly. Shuri had only managed to upgrade one communications device, so Peter is wearing it. He should be able to communicate anything crucial to Loki that he can’t hear should the need arise. 

 

“Where first?” Peter asks.

Loki considers, “if I had to assume, maybe that rocky hill over there.”

“Okay! Let’s go!”

 

A good bit of time later and one hill thoroughly searched, Loki and Peter have come up with exactly zero clues. They do know, however, that Shuri has upgraded three more devices, so Peter can now hear Nat, Happy, and Shuri herself. Nat and Bucky has found a statue of a Pegasus, which was where they had laid their fake clue. They were currently lying in wait for Happy’s signal that members of Cap’s team where nearby so they could spring the trap. 

 

“You’ve got Cap and Sam coming at you from the woods. Do it now,” Peter hears Happy’s voice announce. 

There is a lot of nothingness, which Peter assumes is Nat and Bucky acting as though they’ve just found another clue. There is a quiet sound that might be a high five, and then a lot more quiet. 

 

“Cap and Sam are still hiding. They’re watching you two like hawks. Don’t come back for a while,” Happy tells them.

“Copy that,” Nat hisses, voice barely above the breeze.

“Okay I’ve lost sight of you two. Cap and Sam seem to be taking the bait. You have them, hook, line and sinker,” Happy narrates. “Yeah, they’re up at the statue now, they’ve taken the clue. They seem to be heading back.”

“How accurate was the clue you made?” Shuri questions.

“Very. I re-used our own,” Nat says, her words vague so that should someone be listening they wouldn’t know of the plot. 

“Peter, any luck?” is Shuri’s next question. 

“Not so far. We’re doing our best.” 

“Alright.” 

“Are we planning on making another fake clue?” Happy questions.

“No. It served its purpose,” Nat negates.

“Okay. Loki and I are still out here. Do you need us?” Peter asks, more in case anyone is listening than anything else.

“You said you haven’t found it?” Shuri asks.

“No.”

“Then no,” Nat responds for Shuri. 

 

It takes some time, but eventually Loki and Peter stumble upon a cave full of rudimentary stone carvings. Underneath the statue of a man holding a sword, whom Peter assumed to be Chrysaor, they found the clue. They wasted no time in sneaking back to their base to show off their prize. Luckily, the decoy seemed to have worked as the other clue was also there, meaning that Clint’s team hadn’t found it yet. They had the advantage at the moment. 

 

“Found what we wanted,” Peter breathes.

There is acknowledgment from the rest of the team members, Shuri has upgraded all the communications devices by now. Peter and Loki climb the steps to the roof nimbly and arrive to a happy team. They all place their thumbs upon the clue and it rips open.

 

_ Crackle crackle _

_ By the sea.  _

 

“I’m not the only one who’s confused, right?” May asks.

Loki tips his head, considering, “you are not alone, no.”

“If I was a betting woman, I’d bet Tony wrote this,” Nat announces.

“You  _ are _ a betting woman,” Bucky points out.

She shrugs, “fair enough.”

“Okay so, let’s assume the ‘by the sea’ part is the actual location, what’s the crackle crackle?” Shuri asks.

“Maybe it's a noise,” Peter thinks aloud, “like pop rocks? Or Rice Krispies?”

“What is the name of Bast is a pop rock?” Shuri is astounded.

“They’re these like little candies and they pop and crackle in your mouth. They’re wild,” Peter botches the explanation. 

She raises a skeptical eyebrow, but moves on, “or perhaps something that is not a good?”

“What, like a crackling log?” Bucky scoffs. 

May’s eyes light up, “exactly like that!” 

Peter nods along, “it would be perfect. It fits well with the setting. Though, I must admit that I am disappointed it doesn’t involve food.” 

Shuri rolls her eyes, “of course you are.” 

“Bucky and I will help you look this time. We still need to find the other team’s base so we can see if they are still caught in our trap,” Nat tells him. 

Peter nods, “fine by me.”

“I’ve also put tracking devices in your comms. I’ll tell you guys how close you are to each other and just generally direct you.” 

“Are we ready then?” Bucky asks, already impatient. 

 

Peter looks to Loki, who gives him a sharp nod. Nat then leads the way down the stairs and she and Bucky slip through a door so quietly even Peter has trouble hearing it. He and Loki do their best to mimic their silence, but it’s a task not easily achieved. Peter doesn’t let it bother him. 

 

They trampse down the path to the beach and begin walking along the shore. It feels oddly exposed and Peter is itching to say something to Loki. He’s never been very good at keeping quiet, especially when he’s nervous. In this case, there’s a lot to be nervous about. The fact that his companion is a literal GOD and he also might have tried to destroy his home city and by extension, him, or the fact that he doesn’t want to mess this game up for his teammates. And then there is the fact that Shuri’s watching him, or at least tracking him. He’s not quite sure how he feels about that. He trusts her absolutely, but lately something has shifted ever so slightly between them and Peter is too scared to acknowledge what that really means. In situations like this, he’d normally just talk about  _ anything _ else and that would be his distraction. This time that’s not an option. Still, he has to continually remind himself about the silence rule. 

 

Luckily enough, it’s Loki who breaches the oppressive silence, “there,” Loki points, breath floating away with the wind. Peter wants to sag with relief.

They quicken their pace to where the remains of a fire are located. Tucked neatly in the ashes is another clue. Peter pockets it and he and Loki slip into the forest. 

“Bucky, Nat, they found it,” Shuri announces over the comms.

“Heading your way,” Peter responds, grateful to break his silence. 

 

They make their way back to the mansion quickly and effectively, and without being followed. Or at least Happy says he doesn’t see anyone in the forest once they are in viewing distance of the mansion. Once they reach the roof, Peter goes immediately to Shuri’s side. 

 

“There’s Nat and Bucky. They’ll be back shortly,” she tells him, glancing up from the screen.

“I have something I need to tell you,” Peter begins.

“I know. I’m smart like that. But now isn’t the time,” she cuts him off. 

“Um okay,” Peter agrees, bewildered. 

“We only have one clue left to find once we get this baby opened up, and then we’ll get the prize and we will win.” 

“That’s the plan,” Peter says, a little worried as to where this is going.

She continues, “and we HAVE to win. You know why?” Peter shakes his head, “because I don’t lose.  _ Ever. _ ” 

Peter shakes his head at her, amused, “has anyone ever told you you’re scary when you’re competitive.”

“Not anyone I cared to listen to,” she quips at him.

He raises an eyebrow, “I see,” and decides to leave it at that. As much fun as it would be to rule her up, now is not the time. Peter is a little competitive himself and he doesn’t want to lose this game. 

 

“We’re back!” Nat calls in a sing song voice.

Peter jumps up from where he’d been sitting and rushes out to meet her, greeting her with a hug. 

Nat hugs him back briefly before shaking him off and entering the tent, “let’s open this thing up then, huh?”

“Totally,” Shuri agrees.

 

Everyone gathers close and presses their thumb to the designated spots. The casing opens and a sheet of paper floats out. Bucky catches it before it gets too far and reads it aloud to the group.

 

“Winter, Summer, Spring and Fall, while they may be taught to us all, this season is the best of the haul.”

Everyone stares blankly at each other for a long moment. 

“What.” Shuri states what they’re all thinking. 

“Maybe the other team tricked us too?” Peter suggests, not believing this could be an actual clue. 

“I shall check,” Loki offers, and he seems to briefly double himself. He closes his eyes for a long moment, focusing, before opening them once more. “It appears that the other clue in the cave is still there. The opposing team would not have had the resources to create four individual fake clues, so it must be a real one.” 

Peter nods thoughtfully, “he has a point.” His brain then catches up to him, “wait, how’d you just do that?”

Loki shrugs, “I am a god, boy. I have powers. One of those such powers is to be able to create secondary versions of myself. They have no actual substance so they can float through walls or trees. I simply sent that alternate version of myself to check the cave.” 

“How’d it get there so quickly?” Peter asks, astonished.

Shuri raises an eyebrow at him, “later, fanboy? We have actual work to do right now.” 

Peter forces himself to stop thinking of all the reasons as to how that isn’t logical, magical solid-deficient clone creation aside. 

“Wait! What about a seasoning! Like the kind you put on food!” Peter exclaims.

Shuri’s eyes light up, “that could be it! Look we have a map of the island here, maybe there is a landform named after a seasoning.”

 

Everyone crowds around the map, but Peter doesn’t immediately see anything named after a spice, “there,” Bucky points, “Basilic hill. Basilic is French for basil.” 

Everyone lets out a small groan, wishing they were the one to have realized it.

“Do you and Nat want to go try and find it?” Peter asks, feeling bad about monopolizing all the clue finding. 

Nat shakes her head, “no, we are still checking up on the other team. We’re trying to find out if they are still following the phony clue.”

Happy nods, “and I’ll be looking to see if they come around here trying to do the same thing.” 

Nat nods, “let’s go then. No sense in wasting time.”

 

Peter jumps off the roof, catching a web on an extended tree branch, and flying through the sky. He doesn’t have to worry that Loki won’t be able to follow him as the trickster god has well, a couple tricks up his own sleeve. They roam the forest silently, careful to not leave too many traces. Peter’s spidey sense never warns him of any potential enemies nearby, so they probably aren’t being followed. Not that that’s always a sure thing when it’s his  _ family _ and not, you know, actually villains.

 

Still, by the time they reach the hill, Peter is fairly confident they haven’t been followed. Loki begins inspecting the hill at once, flipping up all the rocks in search of the clues. Peter decides on a different method and simply steps back and looks for anything out of the ordinary. It is several moments before he locates what he has been looking for, a small patch of grass with a slight discolouration. The difference is so subtle that anyone without Peter’s enhances senses would have never seen it. Peter walks over and examines the plot of ground, at first not seeing anything he hoped to find. Loki joins him, and stares, perplexed, at it as well. 

 

“I can’t figure it out. Karen, do a heat scan,” Peter whispers.

“Three people detected,” Karen tells him, showing a diagram, “they register in my system as Loki, and your parents.”

Peter grins to himself, his suspicions being proven correct. The hill was some sort of secret bunker. 

“They’re down there,” Peter informs Loki. 

Loki cocks an eyebrow at him, “I figured as much.”

Peter resists the urge to roll his eyes, “how do we get to them?”

“I suppose we walk,” Loki drawls.

“Thanks.”

Loki doesn’t respond, but instead disappears. Peter gapes at the space where the god had been standing, and is still processing when the secret hatch opens. He looks down into it to see Tony, Pepper, and Loki all dude by side grinning up at him. 

“Congrats!” calls Tony, “you won!” 

Peter jumps nimbly into the small room. It seems to be a wine cellar slash office. Peter doesn’t question it, well used to his father’s eccentric ways. 

 

“What do we win?” Peter asks.

“What, eternal bragging rights not enough for you?” Tony jokes.

Peter doesn’t dignify him with a response.

“I made the winning team special medals, that more to your liking?”

Peter gives him a smug smile, “indeed.”

“Alright c’mon, let’s go break the bad news to Cap!” Tony sounds only a little too gleeful about this, but everyone lets it slide.

 

~*~

 

Hours later, as the day’s activities washed over him, Peter smiled to himself. He’d gotten absolutely everything he’d wanted on his birthday, and so, so much more. His aunt was happy, his parents were happy, his whole extended super family was happy. What more could he ask for? He’d even gotten to meet Thor and Loki, and Carol had dropped by earlier. Not to mention, he was on a gorgeous private island. 

 

And then there was the other thing. Even in the dark, he knew that Clint could roll over and see his blushing face. He directed his attention elsewhere, and opened up his phone. The remaining Avengers has made him birthday posts. He replied and re-tweeted them all, interacting with a couple fans as he did so. Just as he was about to put his phone down for the evening, a notification light up the screen. He smiled a small smile to himself upon seeing what it was.

 

**Princess Shuri** @memeshuri

@starkintern congrats on another year of being a superhero or whatevs

(MemePeter.img)

 

The attachments were a series of mostly unflattering photos of Peter with various captions. Shuri had included the photo of him coming out of the porta potty in the Spider-Man suit, some of him making weird faces, doing impossible acrobatic moves, or just generally fail photos too. There was even two from today in there. One photo stood out from the rest, however. It was not a meme like the rest, but simply Peter and Shuri, laid out on recliners by the Avenger’s pool. (They had an outdoor one as well.) He is wearing sunglasses, but it doesn’t really hide his eyes, which are sparkling with laughter. Shuri is in a simple white one piece swimsuit, covered mostly by a towel, and though her sunglasses are dark enough to obscure her eyes, she is grinning from ear to ear. Peter smiles at the photo, not even really remembering what day that was or even who might have taken the photo. 

 

He doesn’t bother to type out a full response to the tweet, simply re-tweeting it with a little heart emoji. 

 

As he sets down his phone and silences it, his eyes catch on the little gold medal from the scavenger hunt earlier. His face lifts into an uncontrollable grin once more as he recalls how Tony had handed him his medal and whispered in his ear that he’d been so confident Peter would win that he’d taken the liberty of engraving his name into it. Peter goes up and grabs the thing, running his hands over the name. Peter Stark. It sounds pretty good. 

 

The next morning, Clint will wake to see Peter clutching the medal to his chest and smiling softly. He’ll take a picture, but he won’t post it anywhere. Some things aren’t meant to be shared. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t worry, there’s gonna be a cute little epilogue where the Peter/Shuri relationship will be confirmed or denied once and for all! Just as a general note to my fans who have not been here from the beginning, I started this before Endgame came out or ffh. It’s not canon compliant. :( 
> 
> Anyway, tell me what you think! Love it? Hate it? I want to know!


	6. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The question you all want answered.

*6 months later*

 

Peter grinned down at his computer screen, “Hey internet! What’s up?”

 

The messages instantly began flooding in. It was his first time doing an Instagram livestream, but his fans seemed to be appreciating it. He didn’t use Instagram a lot, but it was the easiest platform to livestream on. Right about now, the world would be notified that @peterparkour was going live. He’d simply made his private Instagram public after the reveal because he was too lazy to make a new one. 

 

“How are you all doing?” Peter asked, not quite sure how to engage with the millions of people watching. Peter’s 100 million plus follower count still boggled his mind, but he didn’t dwell on that for long. 

“So I was thinking of doing a Q&A of sorts. I’ll respond to questions I see and probably ramble from there.” 

He paused to take a sip from his hot cocoa. 

“Where were you last week?” Peter reads aloud, “well I was in Wakanda actually. I’ve sort of become part of the Wakandan outreach program. I’ve been learning how to work with vibranium so that the skill exists outside the country. And then, of course, Shuri comes here a lot as well.” 

Peter reads through the comments as fast as he can, finally seeing another question, “where are you? Geez, you guys like to know my whereabouts at all times, huh? Right now I’m in my lab at the Avengers Compound. It’s kind of more like an offshoot of dad’s lab than it’s own lab as I tend to work mostly with him when I’m actually doing lab work, but there is a glass divider that can close and darken completely if I ever want some privacy. Mostly I just do like, homework here, though.”

Peter glances around his lab, “I’ll show you guys around a bit. Right now, the wall is up and darkened because I don’t want to accidentally expose SI secrets, so it’s really not too terribly interesting of a room. I make all my web fluid in here, though, so you can see that over in that corner. Nat calls it the spinneret. I just call it my web making table. That there is my desk,” Peter points to a clustered workspace, “that’s where I do all my homework. I’m still taking a couple classes even though I’m not officially going to start attending college until next year.” He moves on to the rest of the room, “that’s my research station with the computers back there. I use it basically just to look up stuff or design something using holograms before I actually try to prototype it. Where I’m sitting right now is my general workspace. You can’t see it really well, but just imagine giant lab tables all in a line.” 

Peter pauses for a moment, “so yeah. That’s my lab. The rest of the cabinets and stuff is just for storage. I don’t use the ceiling in this room because gravity and assembling projects don’t go super well together on the ceiling.” 

“Anyways, more questions?” Peter asks. He hadn’t really expected doing a livestream to be so hard. The couple he’d seen people do had looked so effortless. 

“Favorite band? Ooooh, tricky one. I don’t really have a specific band that I can definitively say is my favorite because I mostly listen to a mix of songs form lots of bands. AC/DC, obviously, Valley, um The Beatles of course, I’m going to name single artists as well because why not. Elton John, The Killers, Now, Now, The 1975, Litany, Poison, ummmmm old Taylor Swift songs. I’ve been trying to get into rap because that’s all Shuri listens to, but I just can’t and I’m pretty sure she only does it to be ironic anyway. She listened to Old Town Road twenty times in a row last weekend and I was a little worried about her mental health.” 

“Speaking of that, we made a pretty funny video of us dancing to that song and I know it’s not cool anymore but Shuri decided to bring it back so that was that. We’ll probably post it later today. It’s so cringeworthy. You’ll love it.” 

Peter scabs the comments once more, looking for a fun question. He sees one he likes as it flies out of sight, “what’s your most embarrassing story of when you met one of the Avengers? Oh boy, this is a good one. So obviously I had already fought with all the Avengers before this meeting took place, but that doesn’t really count because when you’re in a fight you’re not  _ really  _ meeting someone. The backstory for this is that I had gotten injured so I was hyped up on some super strength pain meds, so I wasn’t quite myself. Anyway, in walks Carol, you all would know her as Captain Marvel. Now, I’m laying in a hospital bed and the way I remember this is that she was wearing a blue shirt. She claims she was still in uniform. Either way, I thought she was the nurse so I asked her if she could take out the IV. She looked at me and said, ‘are you sure?’ and I said that I was, so she just kind of yanked it out and then all these alarms started blaring and Tony came rushing in to see Carol with the IV in her hand and me sobbing on the bed because of the noise and the meds making me act all weird. Tony asks us what happened and I said that Nurse Zapobil took out my IV. Then Carol started laughing and said she wasn’t the nurse. So then,” Peter pauses for a breath, “I say, to her face, ‘oh then who  _ are _ you’ and she reminds me that she’s only, like, the most powerful being in the universe, and Tony just keeps laughing at the name Zapobil because that’s what he wanted to name a car he was making. I know it’s not like super embarrassing but all my other initial interactions with the Avengers were pretty normal.” 

“Okay new question, how did I meet Tony?” Peter frowns at the screen, “I’ve literally told you this story so many times. He found me on YouTube and then one day I came home from school and he was at my apartment.” 

Peter took another sip of hot cocoa, savoring the taste as it slid down his throat. “I’m drinking hot cocoa right now, by the way. We have a little robot that makes us drinks, but I’ve been banned from everything with caffeine so all I can get is hot cocoa or steamed milk. Everyone else gets coffee.” 

Peter scabs the comments again, “what’s the place I most want to visit? That’s a tough one. I’ve been to so many more amazing places than I ever could have dreamed of it seems unfair to want to go somewhere new. I guess I’d probably pick Zermatt, Switzerland.”

Peter looked down at the comments once more and rolled his eyes, “I see everyone commenting that Shuri is on the live. She’s literally at the compound right now.” 

“Hey Fri,” Peter called to the AI, “tell Shuri to come in here.” 

“She is on her way,” the AI smoothly replied. 

 

A little belatedly Peter realized he could’ve just asked her on the livestream, but he figured the result would have been the same either way. The door to his lab opened and a moment later Shuri was crossing the space. She sat nimbly beside him, giving him a quick peck on the lips and intertwining their fingers. The internet proceeded to explode. 

 

With his free hand, Peter rubbed the back of his neck, “so this is my girlfriend, Shuri. Many of you guys already know her.” 

Shuri rolled her eyes at the comments that were flying in, “you guys literally already suspected we were a couple why are you all freaking out?”

“Alright Shuri do you want to answer the major questions.” 

“Sure.”

“Okay let’s go for an easy one at first. Are we dating?”

Shuri rolls her eyes, “Peter you literally just called my your girlfriend.”

“Hey! I’m just trying to be very clear.”

Shuri sighs, “unfortunately, yes.”

Peter grins over at her and she smiles back. 

“Where was our first date?” 

“Oh,” Shuri laughs a bit, “we can’t exactly go to coffee shops, on account of being recognized, so we went for a hike.”

“It was a sunset hike,” Peter fills in the gaps, “it was very romantic.”

Shuri raises a brow at him, “if you say so.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Peter asks.

“Next question,” Shuri says, teasing him.

“How do we make the long distance thing work?”

Shuri pauses for a moment, stealing his cocoa. He makes a small noise of protest, but she ignores him, “it’s not too bad,” she starts once she swallows, “we see each other almost all the time. Either I’m here or he’s in Wakanda and when we’re apart we can skype or holo call.” 

Peter nods, “I suspect it’ll be harder next year when I’m in college though.” 

Shuri makes an affirmative noise and drinks some more of his cocoa. He frowns at her. She just grins back.

“One lads question?” He asks her.

“Hit me,” she agrees.

“How long have we been dating?” 

“Welllll-” she begins and Peter shuts off the stream.

 

They turn and grin at each other. Six months later and their secret is finally out there. “Movie?” Peter asks. Shuri nods in agreement and they race to the common room. 

 

Three hours later, Pepper will rush into the common room, Tony having forgotten a paper for his next meeting. She’ll see Peter and Shuri, fast asleep together on the couch, the credits of a long forgotten movie playing in the background. For a moment, Pepper will forget about the paper she raced here to get and allow herself a small moment of happiness at seeing her son and his girlfriend snuggled up together on the couch, her head on his shoulder and fingers licked loosely together. She’ll flip off the lights and turn off the TV, and tell FRIDAY to make sure no one else goes in the room. Then with one last smile at the sleepy couple, she’ll shut the door and make Tony deal without the paper. He probably wouldn’t have followed it anyway.

  
THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it! The end of the series! I hope you liked it!

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually post incomplete works, but I felt pressured because of all the nice comments to just get something out there. I hope you enjoyed it! I also would like some reader input. Should Shuri and Peter become a couple or not? I don't know how many of you want that to be a reality, but if you do, let me know! If enough people say they want them to be a couple, I'll probably do it in like the last chapter.
> 
> As always, message me any errors and I'll fix them. I don't have a proofreader, so I do my best.


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